


catharsis

by lein



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Altean Shiro, Alternate Universe - Aliens, Background Relationships, Balmeran Hunk, Bird Alien Pidge, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, M/M, Polyamory, aka the everybody but lance is an alien au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-08-09 05:26:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7788466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lein/pseuds/lein
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He supposes the gravity of the situation hasn’t fully sunk in yet, that he’s trapped in a space castle with another human and five aliens and virtually no way to get home. Blue assures him that Earth is safe, safer now that he’s out here, now that all the lions are together.</p><p>Lance tries not to think about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> love them galra!keith theories floating around so lets just take that and extend it to everyone (but lance, but that's bc he's probably the most attached to earth in canon). pidge is the only one w/o canon species so please imagine them as basically a rito fro loz:ww (wing arms, talon hands and feet, nose beak, & soft small downy feathers for hair). as for right now, keith is referred using an alternative name (keiv) as it sounds a little more alien lmao. he is the one with a name change however.
> 
> hunk and shay will be a v minor relationship, it'll mostly be lance and his sad alien bfs (everyone is the equivalent of an adult in their species; well maybe not pidge they're a little younger but not by much)
> 
> anyways... who knows where i'm going with this, let's fly.

It starts with a dare.

In retrospect, Lance probably should have stayed behind but he’s never been one for curfew, never been one to resist a challenge, especially when one of the girls from his class knocks on his door and personally asked him to come along. 

“Are you coming?” She had said, eyelashes fluttering nice and pretty, “Or are you too chicken?”

Lance couldn’t refuse- couldn’t look into her blue, blue eyes and rightfully tell her no- and so now he’s here out in the middle of desert looking for some stupid cave apparently covered in lion carvings with a bunch of kids from his class. It’s a bad idea; there’s no doubt in Lance’s mind that if they get caught they’ll be severely disciplined.

There’s five of them altogether armed with flashlights and teenage determination. Lance can’t figure out how to say that they should turn back before they get caught without sounding like he’s a coward. Instead he lingers towards the back of the group and attempts to flirt with the blue eyed girl. 

She laughs, more at than with him but Lance takes whatever he can get. 

The cave is hidden but close. Lance takes it as a small mercy. It’s dark, darker than the settling dusk outside; the carvings are less impressive bathed in the artificial light of the flashlights than they would be in filtered sunlight but Lance is still drawn to them. He can hear the others chattering behind him, daring each other to touch the carvings. Lance thinks someone complains about the dust but he’s not really listening.

He lifts his hand without realizing it, instinctively reaching out to clean off the one in front of him. It’s automatic, the reaction. The cave lights up, blue light flooding the cavern in an ethereal glow.

The flashlight drops, forgotten.

Lance steps back, startled. Behind him, someone is saying something; the words are muffled and running together in Lance’s ears. He can’t breathe bathed in blue light, can barely think, captivated by the lit up lions.

The floor opens and they all fall.

* * *

 

“No, no, no, no, no," they chant. Pidge slams their hands into the ship’s controls.

Maybe, they think, if they hit it hard enough the ship will magically work properly. Pidge is angry at the ship for losing power, at themselves for stealing the worst ship in the bay, at the universe for making their awful predicament worse. 

“Fuck!” Pidge hits the display once more and tries to pilot the ship towards the nearest planet. It putters, swings left, and manages to hold on until it hits the planet’s atmosphere; Pidge is almost happy when the ship starts to dive towards the surface. If they have to die, they’re at least glad that it’s because they’re out looking for their family.

Pidge plugs in their compact and pulls back on the controls in an attempt to leach enough power to land safely- well, safer. 

It hits rough, pillowed in the planet’s thick foliage. There’s a huge break in the hull, a thruster sadly lost in battle with an upper branch.

They gather all they can manage to scrap up into a rough burlap bag and step out onto the waiting tree. Its limbs stretch out in a webwork atop the leafy ground. There’s a river to their right.

Pidge has never been happier to have wings than this moment. 

Leaving the bag resting against the hull, they start make their way up to the treetops to survey their surroundings. Pidge hopes to find something, anything, that’ll tell them that this planet has the supplies to fix their stolen ship.

There’s not much, a small village to the south that looks deserted, a pyramid to the northeast. The village is filled with straw huts and small stone formations, nothing that even remotely suggests the possibility of any technological advancements. The pyramid is barely visible, hidden under thick foliage, covered in winding roots. Pidge frowns and decides to start with the latter. It’ll be, at least, an interesting venture.

They grab their bag on the way down and start to walk, keeping the river to their right.

* * *

 

The tunnels are dim, just the tiniest bit darker than normal. Night, Hunk thinks, which is not an issue- they can see just fine- but he’s worried about sneaking around outside of Galra eyes. He doesn’t say it, not now; he usually does and then follows along regardless because he can’t just leave her to go alone.

Shay’s smiling beside him. “Sometimes,” she starts, soft and full of wonder, “I find myself thinking about where the skylings hail from. Is that wrong?”

Hunk shakes his head. “No. I think,” he pauses. “I think it would do us some good to have a distraction sometime.”

Around them, the Balmera hums. She’s dying, it’s obvious, but she’s always happier at night when the patrols are lighter and no one is trying to harvest her crystals. 

They’re up higher then they’ve been before, up closer to the sky. It’s not high enough to see anything substantial and they’re still enveloped in the rocky walls of the Balmera but Shay is always happy when they do this. 

“Hunk,” she says, “Tell me. What do you imagine the sky is like?”

The same question as always. 

“Vast, open.” They turn a new corner. “Free.”

“Free?”

“Yeah, there has to be someplace free of Zarkon.”

Shay frowns. “That does not make sense. Zarkon controls everything.”

“No,” Hunk shakes his head and repeats, “There has to be someplace free of Zarkon. It is hidden, just like this cavern, but there.”

They hit a dead end. The back wall, at first glance, appears to solid but the edges of the left side start to curl in a little too early. 

“There may be something more here,” Shay murmurs and places her hand along the wall. The Balmera sings, opens a path wider along the narrow tunnel. 

Hunk whispers a small, “This is a bad idea,” before he can catch himself. 

His feet carry him across the threshold regardless. Shay follows with a breathy laugh.

Inside, the cavern walls open out into an impressive room. It’s filled with carvings, old, dusty and so much less impressive than they would be if they weren’t standing nearby a massive yellow ship. It calls to him with soft yellow light, pouring out of the walls and into the center of the room.

Hunk finds himself warily drawn forward by the look in the machine’s eyes.

* * *

 

Waking is always a bittersweet affair nowadays, Shiro thinks as he tumbles out of the cryo-pod and onto the cold, cold ground of the ship. He doesn’t know how long he’s been frozen this time around, only knows that, eventually, he’ll be put under again; a sick cycle, implemented to try and make him talk. He knows what they want, the locations of Voltron’s lions but Shiro’s tired of talking, tired of pain, tired of living.

King Alfor is dead, the red lion has been found and captured. Shiro doesn’t know how long it’s been since he was taken captive, doesn’t want to know. 

His only solace lies in the fact that his arm no longer aches from where they replaced it. He flexes the new, artificial limb and hates it.

When he turns his head up to face his captors, Shiro’s surprised to only see one face. He’s small, familiar, always at the back of the room by the door when he’s present. His eyes are the most familiar, yellow and tinged with regret. Shiro always notices the look the other gives him just before they put him back under, like he wants to vomit. 

Keiv, someone once called him, Shiro thinks. 

Keiv is silent. His eyes are sad as he offers the first drops of water that Shiro’s seen in centuries. He’s hesitant to trust Keiv but judging by the way his eyes keep darting to the door behind him, Shiro thinks that Keiv’s not supposed to be here. 

Keiv takes a seat sideways, in order to keep a better eye on the door, and settles the bottle down in front of Shiro. He watches Keiv rummage around his pockets for something.

He pulls out a few small bars wrapped in some kind of clear film. They appear to be edible. Keiv unwraps one, pinches a portion off the top, and catches Shiro’s eyes as he pops it into his mouth. Keiv then pushes the wrapping up to cover the bottom and places the bars by the water. Shiro decides to trust the offerings.

They don’t speak and when Keiv has to reactivate the cryo-pod, Shiro swears he sees Keiv mouth the word, ‘sorry.’

* * *

 

Clean up is simple.

Robotic, Keiv picks up the clear plastic wrappers and empty bottle. He takes the escape methodically, one step at a time. 

One foot, other foot, box, grate, duct. 

Leaving through the door would leave records. He’d shift into a form easier to move in, but there’s always the issue of his belongings.

Keiv sighs, dropping into the empty security room- shift change- and quickly reinstates the live feed for the Altean prisoner’s room. He’s back in the air duct before the new guard walks back in. 

The last drop lands Keiv in his quarters. It’s small, empty, but ultimately, private and he likes it that way; less personal, easier to pack up and leave. 

Keiv’s wanted to escape for a while, ever since he was put on this stupid ship with this stupid assignment. Get to learn the Altean prisoner’s mannerisms, get to know his appearance, and make him talk.

Would be simpler, Keiv thinks, if he hadn’t had to observe the ways they torture the prisoners.

He’s not entirely surprised, knows that there’s no glory in war and conquest but it’s disgusting to see it so close to him. 

Keiv wants out and he’ll clear the ship to take the prisoners with him.

He sheds his cloak first, then his shirt. Keiv leaves the body suit, utility belt, on and pulls on a soft red jacket from the box by his cot. It’s warm and comforting, bought at a secondhand shop during the ship’s last stop at the marketplace.

Keiv settles on the floor, back against the low resting cot, and concentrates.

He starts with his hand, watches the purple melt away into the smooth cream of the Altean. Keiv likes it, this complexion, more than his regular colouring. Reminds him that he’s not quite the monster that he’s been all but groomed for. 

Keiv feels the shift climb its way up his arm, fill out his torso, legs, feet, neck, head. Hair, a soft black like the shade that covers the top of the Altean’s head. The ears are the last to change, the most difficult. Keiv hasn’t shifted anything more than a simple cosmetic change in a few years so it takes a few tries (and more than a couple of expletives) to find the right feel. 

He crawls over to the small broken pane of reflective glass propped up in the corner of his room.

It’s always odd, seeing himself as something, someone, else. His features, soft and more slender than the Altean, stand out in the dusty mirror. His skin seems to glow, eyes a pretty brown, black markings underneath. Keiv touches them, decides on red instead and watches them turn.

He wonders if he’ll ever get to know the Altean’s name. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shout out to shiro and keith for taking the time to make this slightly upsetting
> 
>  
> 
> prose changes in hunk's part were intentional. i rewatched all the balmera eps and tried to study the speech patterns the balmeran's have (also throwback to my fav shay and hunk convo in ep5!). while the prose changes in keith's part? were??? a strange biproduct of trying to write him (and then his part ended up like 100 words longer than Everyone Else's Lmao)


	2. blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I told you,” Lance grins, leaning towards him with a overenthusiastic wink. “You just have to knock. Not my fault the pretty blue cat ship doesn’t like you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm...... always so overwhelmed when i get comments on fic lmao... but thank you all for such nice pretty comments and kudos!!
> 
> honestly it's such a blast writing lance. ended up taking a lot of dialogue from the first episode since it's a very important scene.
> 
> and also as a fyi.. i'm really bad at updating regularly but i will try my very best....

The ground is hard and unforgiving underneath Lance’s back. Around him, his classmates are loud and obnoxious, which shouldn’t bother him but it does because being loud and obnoxious is  _ his _ job. Lance sits up with a frown to see what they’re gawking at.

The lion carvings are everywhere, the walls, the ceiling, the floor,  _ the giant blue lion ship- _

Wait.

Lance blinks once, twice, rubs his eyes just in case he’s hallucinating but no, it’s still there.

Covered in a complicated looking force field, there’s a giant blue lion-shaped ship. He feels it hum deep in his blood and Lance swears it’s looking right at him, a little strange considering it’s a  _ fucking ship _ .

His classmates are crowded around the barrier, hands pressed against the shimmering blue light. Lance stands and walks forward, swerves his step. The ship’s eyes follow his every move.

“Does anyone else get the feeling that this is staring at them?”

Blue eyes turns back to him. She frowns, gives him a look he’s used to seeing whenever he says something stupid.

“Yeah,” Lance says, ignoring her. “The eyes are totally following me.”

One of his classmates, a boy with a bad attitude, glares at him. “Well, if you’re so fucking special how about you find some way into it.”

“Maybe you just have to knock,” Lance murmurs as he steps forward. His hand lifts and, for the second time today, lays it against the force field without realizing it. It sinks through like the barrier is only a thick layer of air.

Lance sees a brief flash of. Something. 

A robot?

He decides to keep it to himself as the lion ship lowers its head to open its mouth. It purrs, loud and rumbling and apparently only in Lance’s goddamned head because no one comments on it. It’s weird, he thinks, but he’s so captivated that he forgets to be upset.

“How the fuck did you get in?!” The boy yells at him through the barrier. 

“I told you,” Lance grins, leaning towards him with a overenthusiastic wink. “You just have to knock. Not my fault the pretty blue cat ship doesn’t like you.”

He welcomes the vulgar gesture he gets in return before turning his attention back to the lion. Curious, he steps inside and gawks. It’s definitely not from this world, something clearly evident by the personalized force field and the purring that starts up again. Lance can feel the ship trying to push him towards the controls. 

He doesn’t know if he should but he wants to. He definitely wants to but his classmates are still outside; they’re all still out past curfew and if they don’t get back soon there’s a chance they might kick them from the piloting program.

“Sorry,” Lance says to the cockpit, dragging his fingers along the wall in a way that he hopes is soothing to the ship. It purrs in return and he can feel the way it agrees, the pull stops. 

“I’ll be back, buddy,” he promises with a smile. When, he’s not entirely sure but a strange alien ship that only responds to him? He couldn’t stay away even if he tried.

* * *

He returns at the end of the week.

It’s a night with no classes to worry about the next day so Lance packs a bag full of various supplies. He’s not sure he’ll need any of it but it feels nice to pack up a few of his favourite lotions and shirts just in case he decides to spend the night.

Lance is antsy. The past few days he’s felt like he’s being pulled, like he’s at the end of a very long string. Every step further away from the ship physically aches; he’s been distracted because of it, missing questions in class, fumbling more than usual in the simulator. 

The cave is easier to find this time around. The ship pulls, winding the string around his legs and tugging them one after the other until he comes to a halt before the hull. Its head is still bowed, mouth open invitingly. For the second time, Lance steps into cockpit. It feels like home.

“I told you I’d be back,” he coos to the display. “And I’m always one to keep my word.”

It purrs.

Lance feels warmth seep into his bones, feels the ship whisper in his head. He climbs into the seat, drops his bag against the side of the display in front of him. He stretches, hands out in front of him, cracks his knuckles and grabs on to the controls. 

“Show me what you can do, buddy.”

This ship lurches, closing the exit and raising its head, moves forward. He can feel it settling deeper inside his blood; his hands push and pull at the controls like he was born to. 

It’s all so natural that Lance almost forgets to breathe.

It’s giving him ideas, feeding them directly into his brain, how to steer, how to fly. It says there’s an alien ship approaching Earth, that they need to get away.

_ I want to protect this planet _ , it- she, Blue,- says,  _ Will you help me? _

Earth means everything to Lance. His family, his home, everything he’s ever known and loved, is here on this planet. Lance would give his life if it meant saving it so he agrees.

_ You’ll have to leave. _

_ You’ll have to leave _ , she repeats in a quiet warning,  _ And I don’t know when I’ll be able to bring you back. _

The words ache. Lance can feel them sitting heavy on his chest. He can feel Blue’s regret and urgency, she doesn’t want to force him.

Lance takes a deep breath, “Let’s go.”

* * *

 

It’s all a blur, what happens after Blue takes off. Lance remembers it in flashes, the giant ship, Blue on autopilot, lasers. The wormhole is the clearest, a quick split second decision pulls him through.

They’re in a new solar system now, one far, far away from Earth. The planets are unfamiliar but there’s no ship chasing him anymore. Blue assures him that the fleet around Earth won’t attack now that she’s gone. 

She leads him to a planet in the edge of Lance’s line of sight. It’s pretty, reminds him of the Earth they just left. There’s a castle in the distance.

_ Home _ , Blue says as she takes him in close,  _ My home. _

Blue is silent as she lands, opens her mouth to let him out. Lance grabs his bag as he exits. She roars, the door in front of them glows and opens. He feels her push, uncoiling the string from around his feet.

The hallway he steps into is so different than anything he’s ever seen before. Cold, metal, and dark, he proceeds the only way he can, forward.

The floor lights up in the in the small room at the end of the hallway. Something activates; a robotic voice tells him to hold for an identity scan. Lance yelps as a soft tingling feeling spreads up his entire body.

Lights blink on slowly, Lance decides to follow them up the stairs, through a narrow hallway, across the vast castle. They lead him to another room, this one round, full of foreign alien tech.

“Where am I?” he questions. “What did you get me into, Blue?”

A soft beeping sound comes from the podium in the middle of the room. Lance watches as two glass pods rise from the floor. There’s people in them. 

One glows, shimmering as it opens. A woman stands inside, dark brown skin, long white hair. Her ears are long and pointed, there’s pink markings underneath her eyes. Blue, he notices as they blink open, sudden.

“Father!,” she yells and starts to fall out of the pod.

She’s gorgeous, Lance thinks briefly and moves forward to catch her, bag dropping by his feet. 

She blinks, turns her face up to stare at him. Lance can feel his face turning red; he takes a beat to breathe and school his face into something he hopes is charming.

“Hello,” he says with a grin.

“Who are you?” she demands. “Where am I?”

“I’m Lance.” 

She glares at him.

“And you’re right here in my arms.”

He can feel her studying his face. She blinks, eyebrows furrowed. “Your…… ears,” she says sounding vaguely judgemental. 

Lance recoils. His ears? They’re perfectly normal human ears, nothing wrong except that they stick out the littlest bit too much. They look different from hers, yeah, but they’re not ugly. 

“They’re hideous. What’s wrong with them?”

Rude.

Lance likes his ears, just like he likes the small beauty mark by his left eye. Lance remembers getting bullied about them in elementary school, back before he started to counter everything with flirts and flattery.

“There’s nothing wrong with them! They heard exactly what you said about them!” he says and then screams when the alien woman grabs one and wrenches his arm behind his back, pushing him down onto his knees.

Blue hadn’t warned him about this.

“Who are you!? Where is King Alfor? Why are you in my castle!?” she demands. She tugs his arms back more with every question.

“A giant blue lion brought me here!” Lance yells, slightly hysterical. “That’s all I know!”

The woman releases him. He sags slightly in relief, brings the other hand up to rub at his ear.

“How do you have the blue lion? What happened to its paladin?” she questions and then continues, softer. “What are you doing here? Unless…”

She looks away. “How long has it been?”

Lance doesn’t know what to say. He frowns, standing up. “I don’t know. Like I said, a giant blue lion called to me, asked me for my help, and brought me here.” He pauses, takes a breath and tries to take everything in. He wonders if she has a name. 

“So I’ve got to ask, does a pretty woman like you have an equally pretty name?”

“I am Princess Allura of Planet Altea,” she sniffs, dismissive, and moves towards the console in the center of the room. “I’ve got to find out where we are and how long we’ve been asleep.”

Lance’s eyes widen. A princess? An actual alien princess? This is the first time he’s been in contact with royalty in his lifetime, he briefly wonders if he should be bowing.

Out of the corner of his eye, Lance catches the occupied pod next to him start to shimmer. It melts away to reveal a man. He’s similar to Allura with pointed ears and blue markings decorating his eyes. His hair is orange, eyes brown. Lance has never seen a more impressive mustache in the eighteen years he’s been alive. 

The man sucks in a deep breath, yells, “Enemy combatant!” and then leaps out of the pod towards Lance.

Lance dodges, watches the man fumble around a bit before looking back at him. “Quiznak! You’re lucky I have a case of the ‘sleep chamber knees.’ Otherwise, I’d grab your head like this!” He makes a motion with his hands. “Wrap you up like so- one, two, three!”

The man snaps his fingers, “Sleepy time.”

It’s a little bit ridiculous, Lance thinks, but he plays along. 

“Well,” Lance combats. “Before you did that I’d-” Lance grunts, waves his arms around a little just for show. “Like that.”

“Oh really!?” the man yells. “How could you do that when I’ve already come at you like this!” He then proceeds to make a series of forward thrusts with his arms, a yell punctuating each one.

Lance can’t help but smile at this man’s showy display. 

“It can’t be…” Allura says, catching both their attention.

“What is it?” the man asks.

“We’ve been asleep for ten  _ thousand _ years.”

The man’s face falls, the room is tense when she continues.

“Planet Altea and all the other planets in our solar system have been destroyed.” She turns, crestfallen. “Coran, Father is gone. Our entire civilization…”

Allura looks away, expression twisting into a glare. “Zarkon.”

“Who the hell is Zarkon?” Lance interrupts. He’s desperate for something, anything, to help him understand just what the hell is going on here. Ten thousand years is a long time, he thinks, an exceptionally long time. He couldn’t imagine waking up after that long to find out that everyone he knew and loved was dead.

Allura startles, seemingly just remembering that Lance is there. “Zarkon. He was the King of the Galra. A vile creature and enemy of all free people.”

“Is he dead?”

She sniffs derisively. “Well, I’d certainly hope so. It has been millenia.”

“Wait,” she continues. “You mentioned that the blue lion asked for help. Can you tell me what exactly happened?”

Lance crosses his arms and thinks back, tries to find the best way to explain. “I found Blue in a cave a few days ago. She kept calling to me, said there was a ship approaching Earth and that she needed me to help protect the planet. I think,” he pauses. “I think they were looking for her. They followed us out until the end of the solar system and that’s when the wormhole opened.”

“Did she say anything else?”

He shakes his head. “Just called this place home and told me to go inside.”

There’s a flash inside his head, the robot Blue showed him earlier. Lance thinks it’s probably important, takes a beat before asking about it. “There was also, uh, an image she also showed me, when I first found her. A giant robot, it looked like. Do you know anything about that?”

Allura nods. “The blue lion is a part of Voltron, a powerful weapon capable of destroying Zarkon. There are five lions in total, five paladins to pilot them.”

“Father…” she breathes, sad.  “He wanted to send the lions away, to prevent them from falling into Zarkon’s hands.”

The man, Coran, lowers his head. “And now our planet is gone and we’re the last Alteans alive.”

Allura lets out a sob. Coran steps forward to pull her into his arms, tender and soothing. It’s obvious they’re close, like family.

Lance’s heart wrenches. He hates seeing people upset, has always hated it. He prides himself on his ability to make people feel better, to make them laugh even if it’s usually at his expense. He’s not dumb, he knows that he’s often the butt of everyone’s joke but a laugh is a laugh and Lance would do anything to make them smile right now. It’s not his place to do anything and it’s frustrating. He want to say something, doesn’t know how to do it tactfully.

Behind them, something squeaks. Allura turns her head, moves towards the pod she once occupied and smiles wide.

“Looks like we’re not the last, after all.”

Lance glances into the pod and spots four small mice clustered in the bottom of the chamber. He smiles, silently thanks the animals for lightening the mood.

Suddenly, an alarm sounds. The console in the middle of room glows red; the display shows a ship much like the one near Earth.

“A Galra battleship has set its tracker to us!” Coran yells, rushing forward to inspect the screen.

Allura pauses in the middle of reaching down to pick up the small animals. She walks towards the console, Lance follows.

“How did they find us?”

“Blue didn’t sense anything when we first teleported here,” Lance says. 

He hears Coran mumble something before frowning at the display. “If my calculations are correct, I’d say we have about couple of days before they get here, a week at most.”

“Good, let them come,” Allura says full of determination. Her blue eyes are wild and defiant. “By the time they get here, we’ll have found the other lions, their chosen paladins, and formed Voltron.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so real talk, i grew up with digimon as a kid and i got really used to the whole, everyone gets their own episode to prove (gain?) their own power or w/e and when i watched the 1st vltrn ep i was just the littlest bit disappointed that lance got like his own coming into (mostly bc it was the first lion and everyone was present) But! no one else really did except for like keith? 
> 
> i remember being just the slightest bit, not disappointed? but it seemed like there could have been a nice opportunity for an expansion. like the first five episodes they each get a lion, there's an ep where they bond, attempt to form the robot, and Then it happens like ep seven or smth. idk
> 
> Anyways Lmao. that's kinda what i'm going to try to do, focus on everyone one by one while each introducing them to the others. 
> 
> (fun fact: i always write my stories using coloured text. which is amazingly helpful for not only figuring out who's pov i'm in but also making my draft nice and aesthetically pleasing lmao)


	3. green

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pidge decides that the alien is harmless and turns, brief, to their compact. It beeps again, signalling that it’s done analyzing the strangely familiar energy spike. Their laptop brings up the match, the encrypted file, a word, a sick legend.
> 
> Voltron.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as an fyi, [this](https://postimg.org/image/fggcujkbr/) is what pidge looks like.
> 
> on the topic of gender for pidge in general: i tend to float a bit between genderfluid and transgirl for them. as someone who is that strange gray area between nb and boy i've grown up personally uncomfortable with she/her pronouns and unfortunately i tend to project that onto characters i like a lot??? which is why i'm more comfortable using they/them pronouns for pidge, and that's why i'm using those in this fic.

Pidge’s compact is picking up a giant energy spike that gets stronger the closer they get to the strange stone structure. It appears to be a temple of sorts, to what they aren’t entirely sure. The building is too badly damaged to tell, ensnared in thick heavy roots. Vines grow up the sides obscuring the stone.

Lion statues stand by the mouth of the river, Pidge can just barely see them from their spot on the wall enclosing the river.

It’s fascinating, they think as they sit, legs dangling over the ledge to pull out their electronics. It’s obvious that the disturbance isn’t something native, there’s nothing Pidge has seen to even remotely suggest that there’s any sort of technological advancements on this admittedly beautiful planet. 

A quick connection of compact to laptop and the signals are easier to examine. The signature is familiar but only vaguely, like something they’ve only seen once. They watch their equipment analyze it slowly, too slow.

Pidge frowns. If they ever manage to make it off this planet, they’ll need to look into upgrades.

They throw their wings out and flop backwards; the laptop perched on their lap wobbles a little with the action. Pidge exhales, breath ruffling the feathers on their forehead. 

The treetops flutter, alive, opening to filter soft light to the forest floor. It’s gorgeous, they wish they could enjoy this but it’s hard to when they’re stranded with nothing but the gear they brought themselves. There was a reason they left their home planet, the disappearance of their family, and according to the stupid encrypted file they found, it has something to do with the  _ fucking Galra empire. _

Pidge regrets being so reckless when they broke into the government facility looking for answers. If they were only a little bit more careful, Pidge thinks, they probably could’ve downloaded the entire file instead of running and grabbing the first ship they saw.

They sigh again.

The forest is silent around them. It’s a soft reminder of how little sleep they’ve gotten in the past few days. Pidge can feel their eyelids growing heavy. They consider, briefly, staying awake but they’ve seen nothing, no one, here the entire time they’ve been on this quiet, quiet planet. 

* * *

Pidge awakens to the sounds of someone yelling and the soft beeps of their compact.

“Hello?” the voice says. “Is anyone there?”

Carefully, Pidge sits up. They set aside their equipment, slow and quiet, and move to peer over the edge of the overhang. 

It’s an alien, male, Pidge presumes. Wingless and sporting a short mop of what appears to be brown fur atop his head, the alien frowns. He looks relatively unarmed, as he ties his jacket around his waist. His actions are rough and clunky.

“Allura was so sure I’d find the paladin, or whatever,  _ by _ the lion,” he grumbles. “But there’s no one here, no giant lion ship, no paladin.”

He sighs, “Just some long sloth alien who left me, stranded here, without Blue, with a whole hell of a lot of trees.” 

Pidge decides that the alien is harmless and turns, brief, to their compact. It beeps again, signalling that it’s done analyzing the strangely familiar energy spike. Their laptop brings up the match, the encrypted file, a word, a sick legend.

Voltron.

Below them, the alien’s voice picks up. It’s brimming with disdain. “Find the lions, she says. Form Voltron, she says. Fight the Galra, she says.” 

Pidge’s ears perk up at the mention of the word; they lean over the wall to catch sight of him again. The alien obviously knows something, he’s pacing, arms thrown high in the air. He waves them around with every word, voice growing louder with each exhale. Pidge smiles despite themselves. What a curious boy.

“Well, how the fuck am I supposed to do any of that when I’m _ stuck _ on a tropical forest planet miles away from Blue?!” 

He sits, dejected, burrowing his hands in the fur lining the top of his head and moans. His voice is quieter as he sighs out, “What the hell did you get yourself into Lance?”

Unplugging their equipment, Pidge loads them into their pack. This ‘Lance’ is the only lifeform on this planet capable enough of helping them figure out just what is in this file. Besides, they think, anyone against the Galra, however few they might be, is an ally. Pidge figures it’s another step closer to finding their family.

Mind made up, they throw their pack over a winged arm and hops down off the ledge.

Lance doesn’t notice them, too wrapped up in his own thoughts to hear. Pidge ventures closer. Their footsteps fall light in between the stone lions that decorate the mouth of the river. 

Pidge takes a breath before speaking, “I’m going to assume you aren’t from this planet.”

Lance’s head snaps up, blue eyes meeting brown. He looks alarmed, pats his pockets unsuccessfully in search of something before clearing his throat. “Are you? Sure don’t look anything like Mr. Friendly Sloth.” His words are guarded. It’s evident he’s far from home.

“No,” Pidge says. “My ship crashed here.”

Lance sighs, throws himself backwards. “I’d offer to help but apparently I’m also stranded here until I find another alien lion ship and a person to pilot it. Wait, fuck.” He covers his face and groans. “I probably shouldn’t be just giving out my goals to a stranger. Be a doll and forget I said that last part?”

“Alien lion ship?”

Sounds interesting.

He groans. 

Pidge finds themselves smiling. “I overheard you talking to yourself before.”

“And you didn’t stop me?!”

“Well, no,” Pidge says dismissively. “You mentioned something about Voltron and fighting Galra. Are you part of some underground resistance or something?”

Lance drops his hands to the forest floor. His eyebrows scrunch up in thought. “Honestly? I have no idea. I’m just some kid who found a mechanical lion that started talking to me.” He pauses for a breath before continuing, “Before I knew it, I was swept away to some castle and told I had a destiny or some shit.”

He sits up again, hands digging into the earth below. “Now that you know my awful day so far, I figure this is going to go one of two ways. Either you and me figure some way out of here or I’m taken into the big baddie’s custody, I guess.”

“You seem a little too nonchalant about getting captured.”

Lance laughs. He looks a bit rueful. “I’m a bit new to all of this. Tired and overwhelmed.”

“Well,” Pidge says. “You definitely have the mark of a total novice.”

“Hey!”

There’s something about Lance that just begs to be made fun of, something harmlessly cheerful. It’s a good balance, they think, to the swaying breeze through the treetops, to the severity of the situation. 

Pidge laughs as he bristles.

“So,” he says. “What it’s going to be, helpful or handcuffs? I may have a lot of experience with the latter but, regretfully, not in this context.”

“Ew,” they say as they smack him. Lance yelps.

“Watch the claws!”

Pidge sighs, setting down their pack to pull out their compact again. The signal reads closer, still coming from the stone temple in front of them. They vaguely register when Lance stands and moves around them to try and catch a glimpse of the electronic screen.

“Alright,” Pidge starts. “So I’m going to go ahead and assume that you have no plans on how to get off this planet other than wait for the person who brought you here.”

“Who’s probably not coming back.”

Pidge hums. “The temple in front of us is giving off some sort of foreign signal-”

“Makes sense,” Lance interrupts. “Given the copious amounts of lions around here, I mean.”

Pidge turns to glare at him. “If your  _ ‘talking alien lion ship’  _ was right in front of you the whole time, why didn’t you just go and talk to it?”

“I told you, or at least I think I mentioned it, it’s not  _ my _ talking alien lion ship. It’s someone else’s, the ship chooses.”

Lance crosses his arms with a huff and walks closer to the stone building. “See? If it liked me, shit would be lighting up and pulling at me,” he says with a sniff. “But it looks like she doesn’t want to talk to me so I either have to wait, which is not really an option, or I have to find some way to get Blue over here to pick her up.”

Pidge’s frown grows. It doesn’t make sense, a talking alien ship? Voltron? Lance hasn’t said anything that stands even in the remote area of being probable in their entire conversation. It’s frustrating, hearing him spout some sick children’s tale to them in some half-baked effort to do something. They don’t understand and it’s frustrating.

“You’re not making any sense,” they say. “You keep talking about lions and Voltron like it’s real-”

“It is real!”

“It’s not! It’s some old legend they tell children in order to give them hope that the Galra Empire won’t take their families!” Pidge yells, stepping towards Lance. “But it’s too late! The Galra just go around collecting prisoners left and right! They don’t care who they take!”

They take a shaky breath, eyes thick with water. They’re practically screaming in Lance’s face now.

“Voltron won’t bring my family back!”

The ground lights up.

Lance looks at them, blue eyes reflecting green, before wrapping his arms around them. Pidge sinks, threading their talons softly into the material of his shirt, and sobs. Around them, the forest is silent.

It’s a long while before Lance speaks. His voice is quiet, soft. “We’ll find them.”

Pidge takes a deep exhale before carefully breaking the embrace. “Sorry,” they say.

Lance crosses his arms with a laugh. “One hell of a first meeting, right? Name’s Lance.”

_ Yeah, I know _ , Pidge thinks and introduces themselves instead. “Pidge.”

“...Right. So,” Pidge looks around. Underneath the both of the them, the ground glows a vivid green. The light winds its way up the stone temple, shines amid the roots atop. Something calls to them. It’s strange and nothing they’ve ever experienced before and if Lance is correct, whatever’s up there is for them.

A strange talking lion ship, all for them.

Pidge drags a talon in the dirt below, nerves bubbling up. They know that if they open their mouth, words will just come rushing out. They breathe and speak, “Okay, so I know you said that these ships  _ choose _ their pilots and it would light up and stuff when it found its pilot, or whatever, but what if you’re wrong? I mean, okay, I can feel something tugging me towards the top of the temple but I’m not a pilot. Don’t get me wrong, I always wanted to be one but I’ve never been trained. I read all of the fight control manuals back home and stole a ship but this isn’t exactly the same thing, it’s not even the same tech, I bet.”

Beside them, Lance starts to laugh.

“Pidge,” he says through gasps of air.

Pidge can feel their face slowly start to colour but they can’t stop themselves from continuing, “What if I get in there and it doesn’t respond to me? What if I get in there and it’s too big and I can’t touch the pedals? What if there aren’t even pedals!?”

“Pidge, buddy.”

“What!”

“You’re rambling. Happens to the best of us!” He smiles wide and amused. “Even me, believe it or not-”

“Oh, I believe it, alright.”

“Okay, rude,” Lance says with a pout. “Anyways, what I was trying to say before I got so  _ rudely interrupted _ is, I went through this before. She’ll teach you, you just have to trust in what she says.” He pauses. “Or, well, think-says.”

“Think-says?”

Lance makes a shoo-ing motion with his hands. “Don’t worry about it! Go! It’s rude to keep a lady waiting!”

Pidge rolls their eyes and turns back towards the stone structure. It’s tall, up close, and glowing a soft green. They take the first step onto the stairs and feel the lion wake. Something floods their veins, alive and thriving. There’s a rumbling beginning in the back of their mind. The lion, Pidge thinks, if Lance is to be trusted.

Around them, the wind picks up, guiding them up the stairs, over the roots. A hole sits at the very top. Light pours out of the opening. 

_ Looks like down is the only way in _ , they think.

Pidge swallows and jumps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again... a big thank you to everyone for the positive feedback....
> 
> i really appreciate it a lot even if i have been getting strangely anxious every time i think about the attention.... you'd think i'd get used to things like this in an art school but somehow.. college has just made it worse and i have been spending my dorm years hiding from roommates lmao.
> 
> Anyways, updates, as always, will be sporadic espc since i'm starting my third year on the 2nd (but since i'm following canon, to a point, i do have some of the chapters loosely planned out which is more than i can say for a lot of other fics lmao)


	4. yellow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, Hunk thinks and stops walking, that’s a bad idea.
> 
> “That is a bad idea,” he says. 
> 
> Shay laughs, quiet and musical. “Oh, the amount of times I have heard you utter that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's time for everyone's favourite rock friend!
> 
> this chapter turned out like... way longer than the others which is always a good thing. dialogue is always my favourite part to write lmao and having more than two characters makes it a Lot easier to pack more in.
> 
> i was, honestly, slightly worried about writing hunk but tbh the intro i wrote out was probably one of the fastest ones and a whole hell of a lot easier than pidge lmao anyways i'm proud of this chapter i think.

Hunk doesn’t really want to talk about it.

The glowing machine, that is.

It’s been nearly six cycles since he and Shay encountered the thing in a hidden tunnel close to the surface. He had nearly half a mind to turn it straight into the Galra but Shay stopped him, voice soft.

“They will know we snuck out if we tell them,” she had said, hand pressed into the surface of the Balmera. “This machine is special. The Balmera says we must keep it secret. Zarkon will, no doubt, use it against us.”

And Hunk had agreed.

So here he is, five and a half cycles later, keeping it a secret from everyone. Hunk can feel it bubbling around his chest like acid because he’s bad at this, at keeping secrets, but Shay insisted on it.

He can feel the yellow machine, warm, in the back of his mind and honestly? He’s trying not to think about that either. It’s safer this way, for him, for Shay, for everyone.

So Hunk’s keeping the machine secret, weird warm thoughts and all, and he’s doing his best except, well… Uh, it’s hard to ignore the pulling. Which is the weirdest part, what kind of machine pulls? Hunk’s sure none of the Galra tech does that or if it does, it’s not so... Pleasant?

Weird, it’s weird.

Shay thinks it’s a sign. “She speaks to you just as the Balmera does to all of us,” she had said with a excited smile. “We should go back and try to converse with her.”

“No, no, no, no, no,” Hunk had said back, waving his arms back and forth to try and illustrate just how _bad_ of an idea that would be. “That is a _Bad Idea_. We should forget that yellow machine ever existed.”

“Perhaps, she wishes to bring you someplace,” she had continued, over Hunk, as if he hadn’t spoken at all. “Oh, to see worlds far from here. I wonder what they are like.”

“Perhaps,” voice small, little and wistful, “somewhere free, as you said, Hunk. Somewhere free from Zarkon.”

Hunk hadn’t had the heart to tell her that escaping from the underground would be impossible, strange yellow machine and all.

“I wish,” He had said instead, face turned up toward the cavern ceiling. “It didn’t have to be like this.”

* * *

 

Seven cycles.

Seven cycles since they first encountered the glowing machine another machine touches ground in the tunnel near them.

It’s small and green, hauntingly similar to the yellow one miles above. Hunk absently wonders through the white-hot panic settling deep in his chest, if this one pulls as well.

There’s little light filtering down into the canyon, twisted in such a way to prevent any of them from seeing the outline of the sky. Night, the patrols are lighter and that helps to soothe the burn working up his throat if only a little bit.

Beside him, Shay and her brother Rax are quiet as the machine lowers its head and opens. Rax moves, a half-step in front of his sister, near unconsciously. Hunk feels himself rooted in place.

He doesn’t know what to expect, Galra perhaps, but the two skylings that walk out don’t look to be that.

One tall, brown and soft. His eyes are blue, much unlike the yellow of the Galra patrol, the yellow of Hunk’s own. His gait is wide, hips swinging, and it’s apparent he’s not a fighter, too slight. He looks around, body tensing when he spots the light of their eyes. Hunk thinks he could probably throw the person easily, if provoked. He hopes it doesn’t turn into that.

The other is smaller, fiercer, eyes a striking chestnut nestled in gold. They’re different, covered in white and brown... things, for lack of a better word. Hunk has never seen anything quite like them before. Their eyes are rooted downwards, focused.

Shay steps towards them, determination and curiosity burning brightly in the yellow glass of her eyes. Rax throws a hand out to stop her but she brushes him off. Hunk feels himself numb. He lets her go, she is strong, one of the strongest people he knows, and these guests feel friendly.

“You’re not Galra,” the small one murmurs. Their claws click away at some foreign object nestled in the palm of their hand.

“Nor are you,” Shay says in response. Her legs continue forward.

Around the bend of another tunnel, there are sounds of footfall. The tall one looks back, nervous, and opens his mouth to speak.

“A patrol!” Rax interjects in a frenzied whisper. The tall one’s mouth snaps shut. “Shay, Hunk, we must take leave from these ones. Now.”

Shay turns towards Rax as the tall one steps forward onto the floor of the tunnel. “Wait!” he hisses, frantic. “If those Galra find us, they’ll kill us!”

“Actually,” the shorter one says absently, hands still clicking away. “It’s more likely that they’ll imprison us.”

The taller one throws his hands up. “Either way!”

“That is,” Rax starts as Shay narrows her eyes. “Not our problem. Galra see us near you and they kill both you and us. Shay, exeunt!”

“No! These many years only Galra have been seen here. I will not turn my back on the skylings.” She switches her attention to Hunk. “Rax, Hunk, we must help them.”

“Okay,” Hunk exhales through the burning nerves bubbling in his chest. “Okay,” he says again and nods slowly, hesitant. He watches Shay’s eyes light up as he thinks.

The ship is small, smaller than the yellow one settled above them, and just thin enough, Hunk thinks, to make it into a clearing a little ways down the bend. It’s a safe place, relatively, secret and quiet. He hopes it’ll be enough.

“Can this machine fly?” Rax inquires from beside him, impatient.

The smaller skyling nods and rushes back up the ramp into the mouth of the green machine.

“Well, follow me,” Hunk says, words a little shaky and hurried, as he leads them deeper into the caves.

* * *

 

“I’m Lance,” the tall one says after he catches his breath. He’s doubled over, hands resting on kneecaps, still wheezing but he’s not as pale as he was a few minutes ago.

Hunk can feel his stomach starting to unknot.

“Must admit,” Lance continues as he starts to slide down the wall. “It’s been a while since I’ve had to show off my running skills in front of such stunning individuals.”

Shay giggles. Rax frowns.

“Ignore him, Lance likes to make a fool out of himself regularly,” the smaller skyling says as the machine opens to let them out. “He means thanks for saving us, right Lance?”

Lance gives a weak gesture of confirmation through a particularly wet sounding cough.

Hunk feels himself starting to smile.

“Shay,” Shay says. She gestures to Hunk with an open palm. “This is Hunk.” She sweeps her hand out towards Rax. “And this one, my brother Rax.”

“Pidge,” the smaller skyling says with a slight grin.

“How did you fall to us?”

“We’re looking,” Lance wheezes. “For a ship and a person to fly it.”

“There are many a ship here, skyling,” Rax gripes. Hunk doesn’t miss the way he unconsciously places himself between Shay and the two skylings. “But they are all Galra. I doubt that is what you search for.”

“It’s big, yellow I think, and prone to glowing-”

“What Lance is trying to say,” Pidge interrupts smoothly. “Is that it’s similar to this one.” They pat the side of the green machine delicately and frown. “It should be here, I’m picking up something but it’s faint.”

Hunk wonders if they’re talking about the yellow machine he and Shay found cycles ago. Seems likely, given Lance’s description of it.

“What _Lance_ is trying to say,” Lance says sitting up fully. He crosses his arms and clears his throat, once, twice. “Is that this ship is apparently part off some giant robot we need to get together to fight Galra. That’s literally all I’ve gotten out of Allura. Pretty face,” he sighs. “Really pretty face but all she says when you try to talk to her is-”

Here, Lance starts to wave his arms around, voice jumping up a few octaves. “ _‘We have to find Voltron, Lance, or we will die. Here, go to this dangerous planet we told you was safe and try to reason with the locals to find out who's supposed to control the glowing lion.’_ Because apparently, it’s a weird space pre-requisite or something to have the ships choose their pilot. Something about bonding? I honestly don’t know.”

“Lance-” Pidge admonishes.

“Okay, no, let me finish,” Lance says, closing his eyes. “Like I get it, we don’t know if we can trust these people but they saved us so I’ve deemed it okay to start venting. Might as well let them know exactly what we’re dealing with. It’s a yellow ship, usually the area around it glows when it likes someone and then, after, it-”

“Starts to pull?” Hunk ventures.

Lance’s eyes shoot open, hands flying down to curl into the rock underneath him. He leans forward, grins. “Yeah? You seen it, big boy?”

“Hunk.”

“Mmm, yeah. You sure are.”

* * *

 

“Voltron,” Shay breathes as they curl upwards through the tunnels towards the yellow machine Hunk has so desperately tried to ignore. “Is that not an old child’s tale?”

“It’s real,” Lance says. His arms are folded behind his head, chin tipped up to the ceiling. “At least I think it is. Me and Pidge are two of its paladins.”

“You think?” Rax glares at Lance from his spot next to Shay. “That is not very reassuring, Weak Knees.”

“My knees are not weak!”

“Shut up, Lance,” Pidge hisses and smacks him.

“I thought I told you to watch the claws!” Lance frowns. “Voltron,” he says, quieter. “Has five lions. When we find this one, we’ll have three, well, four since the black one is apparently in the castle.”

Progress is slower than the first time they found the large cavern due to added burden of trying to keep Lance relatively quiet; and it’s harder than it looks. Hunk has had to place the palm of his hand over Lance’s mouth no less than three times. Patrols are thin, a thankful side effect of night, but too much noise would most definitely give them away.

They’re getting closer though, he can feel it. The yellow machine hasn’t stopped it’s persistent tug; it’s only been getting firmer the farther up they go. Hunk doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to get used to it.

“So,” he says. “Where do I come into this?”

Lance falls back to line beside him, reaching up to throw an arm around his shoulders. “Well, my tall friend, seems like Yellow has grown fond of you. She wants you to be her pilot.”

Well, Hunk thinks and stops walking, that’s a bad idea.

“That is a bad idea,” he says.

Shay laughs, quiet and musical. “Oh, the amount of times I have heard you utter that.”

“Well, that is because it is the truth,” Hunk replies. He can start to feel the panic pushing against his shoulders, pulling them down faster than Lance can. “There is no worse person to fly that machine. If you did not notice, I have lived my entire life under the control of Zarkon just trying not to get myself _killed_ , and now I must talk to a giant, yellow, machine to pilot her?”

He shakes his head.

“That would be a bad idea. I have never flown a machine before, much less one like this.”

“Hunk,” Shay exhales sadly. She frowns.

“No,” Lance retracts his arm. Hunk barely notices it, too busy pushing frantic words out. “No, no, no. This has to be some sort of misunderstanding. What if she does not respond to me? What- What if we- What if we make it up there and find she calls for another?”

“Hunk,” Lance says, placing both his hands on Hunk’s face. His mouth is set down, eyebrows furrowed. He presses his hands in, squeezing the tough flesh of Hunk’s cheeks. “Hunk, _buddy_. Have some faith in yourself, pal. You’re not alone in this.”

Hunk grins despite himself. Lance seems to have that sort of effect on him. “Thank you, Lance.”

“Alright, cadets,” Lance says and pats Hunk’s cheeks once more before turning with a smile. He points further down the tunnel with a dramatic flair. “Away we go.”

* * *

 

The cavern is just as hidden as it was the first time Hunk and Shay found it, rock curled in early on the left side and open just wide enough for the five of them to slip in, and just as impressive too.

The walls light in greeting, yellow flickering in the otherwise dim room.

Rax’s expression pinches the minute he sees the massive machine tucked half into the the far wall. “This one is bigger than the other. If battle patrols know not of your presence here, it seems unlikely you skylings will be able to escape with ship in tow. Galra no doubt would tear you asunder as you attempted escape.”

Pidge steps forward, braces a hand along the bubble surrounding the ship. “I may be able to modify the internal structure enough to mask its signature. It’ll be virtually undetectable to enemy sensors provided we can find a clean exit.”

“You wish to make the machine unseen?” Hunk asks. His feet are rooted along the back wall even as the machine attempts to coax him forward with warm words of encouragement. “Even if you manage, I know not how to control it.”

“That, my big friend,” Lance says, grin smug, voice booming in the enclosed room. “Is why I, Lance, the prettiest human in the universe, will ride back with you.”

“Human,” Pidge hums. “Is that what your species is called? Could’ve sworn you were just an unnamed annoyance.”

“Choosing to ignore the comment from the five foot and under club!”

Pidge glares at him before turning their attention to Hunk. “Can you see if you can get the ship to open?”

Shay smiles beside him. Her hand is braced against Hunk’s back, rubbing small and gentle circles into the knobby flesh. “She wishes to speak to you, Hunk.”

He exhales, steadying himself, and steps forward.

There’s a warmth the presses into the curves of his chest the closer he gets to the machine. The bubble pops, nothing more than a stiff spattering of air as he passes through it. She lowers her head, Hunk curls his hand around the side of her face, soft. He closes his head and hears the machine purr.

 _Please_ , she says, _I can help._

“You... wish to help?”

_Yes, you are kind, your heart is big. I want to help protect this planet and all others like it._

Hunk looks back, brief. Shay stands near the mouth of the tunnel, mouth still pulled into a gentle smile, yellow glass full of hope. Rax is beside her, feet turned in towards his sister. His expression is still sour but there is a longing there.

“I wish for freedom for all Balmera,” Shay says, quiet. “Perhaps your Voltron can make it so.”

So Hunk nods, movement barely perceivable.

His hand is shaky where it sits against the facet of the machine. “Okay,” he says and nods a little firmer. “Okay.”

 _Thank you_ , she responds and opens her mouth to let him in.

Pidge disappears inside the moment she opens, steps quick, hands flying to the device inside the pocket of their shirt. Hunk turns back to the others.

Lance grins wide and contorts his hands into a strange gesture.

“Weak Knees,” Rax says, walking towards Lance. “What is that gesture?”

“Huh?”

Eyebrows scrunched, Lance looks down at his hands. “This?”

Rax nods.

“You guys don’t do thumbs up?” Lance frowns. “I keep forgetting things like this aren’t universal constant.”

He sighs. “It means, um- It’s like an affirmative? Like okay! Good job! Or something?”

“So,” Shay says. “It is a good thing?”

“Yeah!”

Shay curls her fingers in towards her palm in an echo of Lance’s ‘thumbs up.’ He smiles. Hunk watches as Lance then attempts to get Rax to do it as well.

He’s glad.

Not exactly glad to leave his planet, but glad that he’s going with people like Lance. There’s something about him that seems effortless, a sort of fun optimism. Lance, Hunk thinks, stepping closer, is someone he could form a lasting relationship with, which is incredibly reassuring.

A few minutes later, Pidge pokes their head out around the metal of the machine’s mouth. “Hunk,” they say and he turns to face them. “I’m almost done with the modifications. For now, you won’t have to do anything but sit and fly her. Later on,  when I try to refine the system to edit out some of the kinks, I’ll add an on-off switch.”

“Thank you.”

Pidge smiles, ducking back into the ship.

They haven’t spoke much outside of a smart comment or two thrown Lance’s way, which doesn’t seem to have the sharp quality Hunk thinks it would have between any others. Pidge is smart, incredibly so, a great asset to their…

Team?

Giant robot?

Whatever this is, Hunk hopes to find his place.

“You will be leaving with them, I presume?” Shay says, placing her hand on Hunk’s shoulder.

Hunk nods, facing her. “I think,” he starts. “I think I want to assist with whatever they may be doing. The machine, she says she wishes to help us.”

“You do not believe this to be a bad idea?” She smiles through a huffed laugh. Hunk echoes it.

“It may turn out to be one but… I wish to trust these two skylings. There is something about them that makes me want to know them better.”

* * *

 

“Patrols should be light on the north face of the Balmera,” Shay says. Her hand is curled against the floor beneath. The Balmera hums, surface lit underneath her palm.

“The tunnels,” Rax interjects, voice tight. “run thin along the way forward. Take extra caution proceeding.”

“Keep well and stay vigilant, Hunk. We shall escort Pidge back to their machine and instruct them on how to make it back to the surface.”

Hunk swallows.

The idea of leaving the Balmera, his home, is becoming less and less appealing the more he thinks about it but Shay’s eyes, yellow like liquid glass, like the light that pours into the caves from the sky’s openings, yellow like the lion that stands in front of him, are full of determination and Hunk wants to protect both her and their planet. They don’t deserve this, none of them do. Centuries of Galra occupation have run their people ragged.

Their Balmera is dying.

Hunk wants to do what he can.

“Ready to go, bud?” Lance says. His hand is curled along the open mouth of the yellow machine.

“In a moment.”

Lance nods and walks into the opening, disappearing among the silver paneling.

“Do not do anything reckless,” Rax says and frowns, small and displeased, before walking Pidge out into the cave.

“I cannot say that I am not envious, Hunk. You are lucky, to fly in this machine to worlds far from here,” Shay says, standing up.

Her expression is rueful but laced with hope and wonder. She takes a step, coming to a stop in front of him.

“I promise,” Hunk says. “I will come back for you, Shay. I will show you what it is like to be free.”

“I wish you luck on your journey. May it be a joyful one.”

Hunk can’t resist pulling her into a hug. She sighs and wraps her arms around him, tight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next up is red which is probably the chapter i've had planned out the most thoroughly, hopefully that means it'll come out sooner rather than later but who knows... 
> 
> i still have to adapt to my class schedule, just finished the first week (which includes four day weekends at the price of 9 hr tuesdays and 7 hr wednesdays). art school is tough and 5 hr studios are even tougher espc as a double major......
> 
> anyways,,,, if my soft spot for lance isn't obvious yet just wait until we get into team bonding,, i have no doubt that it'll show up once i get into the middle of figuring out team dynamics lmao


	5. red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He needs to get the lion ship somewhere Zarkon will never find it. 
> 
> Keiv can’t explain the last impulse exactly but the ship is important. He can feel it, the pulse of the machine. It sings in bubbles of anger, Keiv can feel it clawing underneath his skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> arrrrlright ~~this is unedited and probably will remain so until tomorrow or thursday but i keep thinking about it lmao so just, take it,,,,~~
> 
> **edit:** chapter has now been edited, a few lines of dialogue have been changed here or there along with a couple of typo catches and grammar edits o: 
> 
> so we're almost done with all of the lion origins!
> 
> this. probably would have come together a bit faster had my impulsive ass not been determined to finish an 8k wip and start a new trans keith story so. uh there's that (anyways i'm 2k into that now lmao)

Keiv keeps a notebook.

Hidden in the box by his cot, covered in the soft red jacket that he likes, it sits. The notes, nothing more than scribbles, one word codes and half-formed plans on how to get out of the ship.

All he has so far is: cameras, Altean, red lion. 

It’s written over several pages, accompanied by a map of the ship’s innards and the guard shift that Keiv has long since memorized, more out of necessity than anything. 

The day is the hardest to plan. There’s never a perfect window of time out in the dark of space and planets to escape Galra control are running thinner as the days go by. Keiv needs to get out, needs to get the Altean prisoner away from this hellhole of the ship. 

He needs to get the lion ship somewhere Zarkon will never find it. 

Keiv can’t explain the last impulse exactly but the ship is important. He can feel it, the pulse of the machine. It sings in bubbles of anger, Keiv can feel it clawing underneath his skin. She wants to leave. 

He remembers watching Sendak preen himself for hours from the vents above the prisoner’s room after he captured it; he remembers the Altean’s face scrunching in disgust, watched the way they split his lip open when he refused to speak.

There’s a scar there now, small and white. Keiv noticed it the last time he broke in and released the cryo-pod. 

He hates it.

He hates all of it.

* * *

Keiv’s allowed videos. those of the Altean prisoner, to help analyse his patterns. He doesn’t watch them. Instead, he uses the moments to slowly figure out the shift changes and the best times to change out the security footage to past recordings.

The ship is heading into another galaxy. Somewhere new, relatively quiet. Higher command gives little detail; the guards are convinced it’s a routine scouting mission. They chatter about it in the hallways during patrols, give Keiv little nods when he passes them by.

The Altean reveals otherwise, voice croaked in the isolated cryo-chamber. “They say they’ve found the blue lion,” he tells Keiv. He sounds defeated, tired. The look in his eyes is empty. 

It’s the first thing they’ve ever said to each other.

“Is it true?”

“I,” Keiv exhales. His eyes are trained on the door, his heart is beating wild. “I don’t know. They won’t say.”

The Altean hums, Keiv watches him shift slightly out the corner of his eye. The room lapses back into silence.

He doesn’t stay much longer. Keiv’s heart is racing after their exchange, pumped full of adrenaline and shaken wildly.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” the Altean states when Keiv stands. His voice is flat and concise. Keiv keeps his gaze pinned on the door.

“According to the security feed, I’m not here at all.”

“You should,” the Altean rises. His hands, one metal, one flesh, curl into the material of his jumpsuit. He knows the routine by now. “You should kill me.”

The way he says it matter of fact but it’s clear, rings out loud in the silence of the room.

Keiv swallows. “I’m sorry, just a little longer.”

The Altean moves with a small rueful smile into the pod. Keiv seals it with a frown and presses his hand into the glass. “I’ll get you out of here, I swear.”

* * *

They’re approaching a planet. Keiv can’t see the surface yet but it’s clear which one they’re targeting.

It’s time.

Keiv waits until the midday shift change to switch all the camera feeds to footage from the day before. He’s back in his room nearly before the next guard walks in. 

He strips, pulls on a pair of black pants, a soft gray shirt, and the red jacket he’s so attached to. He presses the notebook curled inside into a free pocket. His utility belt is strapped around his waist, knife, sheathed safe, clipped to the back.

Shoes are next, boots, good grips on the bottom. Gloves follow, fingerless.

Keiv pauses underneath the air duct, turns to throw his cloak over his shoulder. He digs out a small scarf from a pocket and wraps it around the bottom of his face before planting a foot on his desk.

He lifts himself into the duct and moves.

* * *

Voices.

Keiv hears voices. Unfamiliar.

He’s not exactly close to the isolated cryo-chamber that houses the Altean, there’s still a wide stretch of ducts Keiv has to crawl through to get there. 

He barely hears them, whispered voices around the bend of a hallway.

“-need to find the lion-” one says, voice warm and muffled by the metal of the walls.

“-can’t just leave the prisoners here!” another says, higher, louder.

Keiv finds himself moving on auto, sliding out of the vent without thinking. His feet touch the ground, light, and he presses himself flat against the wall behind him as a figure starts to come into view. 

Male, dark skin, dressed in armor. 

He takes his helmet off and looks behind him. His ears are rounded, hair short and brown, eyes like the Altean’s but blue and striking against his complexion. His armor is blue like his eyes.

Keiv feels himself panic, tries to shift to accommodate the newcomer and ends up mixing him with the Altean. His skin paints cream, paler than before, ears round and small, hair fluffy but darker than the intruder. His eyes clear. He thinks they’re brown but he can’t tell, can’t check. 

The alien catches him, a flash of blue out of the corner of his eye, before Keiv can try and mold himself into something more similar. 

“Change of plans,” the alien murmurs. His hand inches down towards his waist.

There’s a whir that sounds in the hall behind the intruders. A security robot, Keiv thinks. If it sounds, they’ll never be able to get out undetected. He moves farther towards the group.

“We have been spotted, I believe,” a new voice says. He sounds nervous. The blue one turns, a small grip forming against his palm.

“Wait,” the second, higher, voice says. They step forward into Keiv’s line of sight. They’re small, outfitted in green armor everywhere except their wings. “I think this might come in handy.”

“Now, I’ll just reset the controls,” they mumble and brush past their companion, past the pocket of hall Keiv can see. “Aaand, it’s working for us now! I’m going to call you ‘Rover.’”

Keiv watches the blue one close, sees his shoulders drop slight. He takes a breath before focusing his attention on Keiv. There’s a flash of light as the grip solidifies into a blaster. Slow, wary, the two others come into view, each holding a weapon of their own. Green, a blade. Yellow, cannon.

The alien trains the gun on him. His hands are shaking. “Who are you?”

“Keiv,” he says and reaches behind him to thumb the hilt of his knife. He’s outnumbered but fast. It’s obvious he has more experience than any of them.

The alien frowns, drops the sight of his weapon just a bit. “Keith?”

Keith. A new name. Keiv likes it.

He nods.

The alien lowers his weapon, scans the area around them. “What’s another human doing here?” he questions, half under his breath. Keiv almost misses it.

“You don’t look like you mind that we’re obviously not supposed to be here,” the green one says. Their weapon remains clenched in the curl of their hand.

“You’re not.”

“Yeah,” the human hums. “But you’re not either, I take it.”

“Yeah.”

“Name’s Lance. Can we trust you enough to help us?”

Lance holds out his free hand.

Keiv thinks, can he trust them? Their collective goals seem to match: free the prisoners, grab the lion. He supposes he can stick with them until they get off the ship. As long as he can save the Altean, Keiv thinks, it’ll be worth it.

“The main holding chambers are over here,” he says, brushing past Lance to start walking down the hallway. “We’ll need to be quick to avoid patrols.”

* * *

Keiv learns the other aliens’ names on the way to the prisons. 

Pidge, dressed in green, orders Rover to open the prison doors. Hunk, in yellow, reassures the prisoners while Keiv shows them to the escape pods. Rover readies one with a quiet beep. 

“Coran,” Pidge says. Their claw is pressed into the side of their helmet, voice annoyed.

_ Seems _ , Keiv thinks,  _ they didn’t find who they were looking for _ .

“We’re sending down a pod full of prisoners. Haven’t found the lion yet.”

“There’s another prisoner we need to get out of here,” Keiv tells Lance, rubs the palms of his hands over his legs once, twice. “My friend.”

Lance frowns, his helmet back on his head. “They don’t keep him with the rest?”

Keiv shakes his head.

A new voice sounds tin and soft from the inside of Lance’s helmet, “We seem to be having a spot of trouble with the castle’s barrier. We may need two of you to cover the pod’s descent.”

Keiv clears his throat, weighs his options on who to take with him. Lance’s gaze snaps to him; Keiv decides his blaster is the best choice, long distance and fast.  “Lance,” he says. “Come with me.”

“Huh?”

“I know where the lion ship is,” he says which seems to catch the attention of the other three. “Can feel her, she wants to leave.”

“But?” Lance prompts.

“I’m not leaving without my friend.”

“Paladins!” shouts through the helmet, higher, angrier. “They’ve locked the ion cannon onto the castle! We need you to dismantle it!”

“Ugh,” Lance says. His face scrunches up as he exhales a sigh before rubbing a hand down the visor of his helmet. “Pidge, Hunk, I’m staying with Keith. You guys take down the cannon and make sure the prisoners get back safely.” 

“How do we do that?” Hunk says.

“Believe in yourself, buddy. If all else fails, Yellow’s armored. Smash her into it.” 

“Blue’s back at the castle,” Pidge informs him.

“And we’ll get back there with the other lion, it’s fine.” Lance grins, waving a hand, before redirecting his attention to Keiv. “Lead the way, man.”

Keiv nods, turns ready and starts to show Lance towards the isolated cryo-chamber. 

* * *

“Hurry up and wake your friend. We don’t have much time,” Lance says from the inside of the cryo-chamber’s air duct. His legs dangle into the room, gaze settled heavy on Keiv whose fiddling with the pod’s settings.

“Watch the door,” Keiv says, exhales, and hits release. “You won’t break anything too vital jumping from that height.”

“Too vital? What the fuck is that supposed to mean!”

The pod shimmers open, a welcome sight, and the Altean wobbles, raises a hand to his temple. His eyes flutter open. “Kei-”

Keiv pulls the scarf off of his face before pressing a hand into the Altean’s other arm to help steady him as he guides him out. “Can you stand?”

A nod.

A thud sounds behind them. Lance. He gasps, audible. 

Keiv watches the Altean’s gaze snap sharp over his shoulder. 

“Keith,” Lance says, voice hushed and breathy. “You did  _ not  _ tell me your friend was an Altean.”

The Altean’s eyes widen, shine. He inhales, opens his mouth in an attempt to say something, closes it. He tries again, “You- A paladin?” His hand falls from his temple, slides along Keiv’s torso absently to grasp itself against the bottom hem of Keiv’s jacket. “My planet-” he cuts himself off with a shaky breath and closes his eyes.

“My planet’s supposed to be gone,” he shakes his head. “I don’t-”

“I,” Lance falters. He steps forward and secures the Altean’s arm, the metal one, over his shoulders, wraps his own around his waist. “I’ll explain later. We have to get to the red lion.” He focuses his attention on Keiv. “You said you can feel her?”

Keiv nods, makes his way to the exit and presses his ear to the door. He can feel her, the lion, underneath the membrane of his skin. She’s been raking her way into his bloodstream from the moment his feet touched the cold unfeeling metal of Sendak’s ship. The energy sits hot like lava with each breath he takes, settles deeper with each pulse of his heart.

He’s never seen her outside of a video feed, framed angry by a particle barrier. Sendak brags about her often but he’s careful to never spill her exact location to anyone outside of high command.

Keiv swallows and lets the lion wash over him, guide him. 

Behind him, Lance is saying something that Keiv isn’t paying attention to. His arm is still wrapped around the Altean’s waist. Keiv throws a quick glance behind him before he slides the door open. “Follow me.”

* * *

Shiro.

Lance says it as Keiv follows the energy of the lion. It’s a name, the Altean’s. A nice name, Keiv thinks it suits him. 

They’re careful as they move through the halls of the ship, voices quiet, steps slow and calculated. They don’t run into anyone, Keiv knows the patrol routes, mostly, and everyone on the ship is distracted by Hunk and Pidge. 

Keiv feels the lion breathe the closer he gets to her; unconsciously, he lengthens his steps, picks up his pace. Behind him, Lance hisses at him to slow down.

“Patience yields focus,” Shiro says as they catch up. Keiv opens the door to the hanger.

Inside, large and foreboding, she sits. A particle barrier surrounds her. 

“Bingo,” Keiv whispers. “Let’s get out of here.”

He rushes forward, presses his hand into the tempered glass cage. He feels her snarl. “Open up.”

Something in the air changes, Keiv can feel Lance and Shiro’s eyes watching him. He can feel the lion think. She shifts, hot with rage and inactivity.

“I thought you said you could feel her,” Lance says when him and Shiro step into line with Keiv. 

“She’s temperamental,” Shiro murmurs through a grunt. 

Keiv frowns, balls his hands into fists and hits the barrier as hard as he can in time with his words. “Hey! Come on! I can feel you! We’re connected!”

“You want to leave!” Keiv shouts and ignores the doors whirring behind him. “So just-” he grunts. Keiv feels desperate, he needs to leave, he needs to get Shiro and Lance and the lion out of here. “Let me help you! Come on!”

She bursts, shield dissolving into light as the hanger door slides open. 

Shouts fill the air and Keiv can smell freedom laced with the tang of ash. Someone fires, “Take Shiro! I’ll cover you!”

Keiv nods as Lance shoulders his blaster, levels it on the guards with shaky hands. Shiro moves steady for a few steps, Keiv braces a hand on his elbow and helps lead him into the mouth of lion.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Shiro echoes once their feet hit the metal of the lion’s mouth. His voice is raspy, breathy, rough. His eyes are bright with confusion when Keiv looks into them.

“Doesn’t matter,” Keiv says and slides him down against the wall of the cockpit, soft. “We won’t be here for much longer.”

Lance climbs in moments afterward, the lion closes behind him. His breath is laboured, whole body shaking. “Let’s get out of here.”

The dash lights up red and warm when Keiv sit in the pilot’s chair. 

“Good kitty,” he says and smiles. The comms blink on with a small ping, Keiv pulls, pushes the throttle and claws his way out of Sendak’s ship. He feels alive for the first time in his life. “Let’s roll.”

“Come on,” Hunk sounds over the ship’s speakers. “Just break, you terrible machine!” He grunts before letting out a small exclamation of joy. “One point for Hunk!”

“Kitty Rose has left the stage!” Pidge says. Their grinning face pops up clear against the bottom of the display.

“I hope I stopped the cannon, I feel I barely made a dent on it.”

“Good job, team,” Lance smiles, weary. His fingers skim along the top of Keiv’s chair. “We need to pull down towards the planet, Keith.” He points down, they’re close enough to hit the atmosphere. Keiv can see a large building sitting down in the distance. “We’re headed into that castle. I need to get to Blue.”

Something clatters behind them. Shiro, most likely. Keiv can hear him breathe. “The Castle of Lions,” he sighs. He sounds wistful, sad.

“Are you okay?”

“I am-” Shiro pauses. “I was the Black paladin.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> school's been kicking my ass, awful
> 
> all the pieces are together now, it's time to get moving.
> 
> anyways, welcome to the birth of keith. he has been born anew
> 
> An interesting note on keith and the empire irt this fic: there is no true race called galra in this story, fun fact! the galra empire is a collection of forces from different planets that have been conquered by zarkon, a drule. they've been occupying planets for millennia and often breeding the locals which is why a lot of galra forces are purple skinned (or furred depending on genetics) like the drule. keith himself is part of a race that the galra call shifters. he's able to, obviously, change his physical appearance. shifters don't really have a true form and it can change depending on what they feel most comfortable as. if they like something, shifters will often unconsciously mimic it when they try to return to their basic 'unshifted' form.
> 
> (that probably made no sense to anyone who isn't me but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ feel free to ask for clarification)


	6. black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Wait,” Lance frowns. “You’re a paladin of Voltron?”
> 
> “I was, yes,” Shiro tries to stress. He doesn’t know if he’s still needed, if Black chose a new paladin while he was in captivity. “I may not be anymore. The other lions chose new pilots.” 
> 
> There’s no reason Black hasn’t either, he thinks but doesn’t say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the alternate title of the chapter is 'Shiro Needs A Hug From Everyone'
> 
> **a quick note!** if you didn't catch the last chapter before the edit, there's a couple lines of dialogue added and changed there that are made reference to in this chapter (:

When Shiro wakes, he’s half convinced this is all a sick dream concocted by Zarkon in an attempt to get him to reveal the locations of the other lions. His pod opens as it always does, slow to filter in the cold air of the Galra warship. 

He hears voices. “-won’t break anything too vital jumping from that height,” the first voice says. It’s familiar though Shiro’s only heard it once before, Keiv.

“Too vital?” the second shrieks. Shiro’s never heard his before. It sounds too alive to belong to one of the guards. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean!”

Shiro’s pod tingles, he feels the outer membrane fall away. A sudden wash of dizziness hits him and he locks his knees to stay upright, hand flying up to his temple. Shiro takes a moment to just breathe before opening his eyes.

The lights in the room are bright, brighter than they usually are when Keiv comes to visit, and the figure in front of him is both Keiv and not. His face is white instead of purple, eyes brown and striking rather than glass yellow. His hair, black, curls around the backs of blunt ears, round and pretty. 

The look he gives Shiro, however, is the same, sad and regretful but laced with fire. “ _ I’ll get you out of here, I swear _ ,” Keiv had said after sealing the pod away last time, something that Shiro was nearly sure he hallucinated halfway to sleep, something that Shiro was sure was just the hope he thought he lost long ago whispering deep in the back of his head.

“Kei-” Shiro starts.

“Can you stand?” Keiv interrupts. He places his hand on the inside of Shiro’s elbow and helps him step over the ledge of the pod.

Shiro nods.

Behind Keiv, something falls or rather, someone jumps. A blue and white blur from the ceiling. The other voice, Shiro thinks, and pauses when the person sucks in a sharp breath.

He’s wearing armor. 

Shiro’s seen it before, worn it before only in a sleek black, the paladin insignia painted blue across the breadth of the person’s chest. Shiro feels himself stiffen, his hearts beat loud against his rib cage.

“Keith,” Blue’s paladin says, voice rounded around the first syllable of the name, elongated and flat on the second. It’s different, less rough. “You did  _ not _ tell me your friend was an Altean.”

Altean. 

The boy says it like he’s heard it before, hushed and awestruck. Shiro feels his hearts stutter, his eyes widen. He sucks in a breath, makes to speak, and falters. “You-” Shiro manages to round out. It sounds rough and clipped. His hand falls to grip the line of Keiv’s jacket. “A paladin? My planet-” 

He closes his eyes and shutters through a breath. Shiro feels like he’s aged ten years just standing here. “My planet’s supposed to be gone,” he exhales and then shakes his head to clear it. “I don’t-”

“I,” The boy starts and cuts himself off. He frowns, stepping towards Shiro, takes his arm, the metal one, and places it over his shoulder. The boy’s own is warm where it wraps around Shiro’s waist. His eyes are blue even through the display of his helmet. “I’ll explain later. We have to get to the red lion.” He looks over to Keiv. “You said you could feel her?”

Keiv nods. 

Shiro watches him walk to the door, press his ear to the metal. His eyes flutter closed, black eyelashes stark against the white of his skin. He wonders if Keiv is telling the truth, if he can really feel Red. Shiro can’t, not anymore, not since he was first shackled by Zarkon, put under and taken against his will.

Shiro watched them die, his comrades, the fellow paladins who he had grown up with. They were close, all of them, and they had been taken protecting the castle after King Alfor sent the lions away. Zarkon had singled him out, told him they only needed one alive, made him watch how he had murdered the others in cold blood one by one, detailed and painful. They had made him watch, over and over, the destruction of his planet. 

Shiro wonders, briefly, if he’s dreaming but he hasn’t before in the inky blackness of the Galra ship’s containment pod. Keiv is real just like the hand that braces itself around his waist, warm and alive even through the weight of his suit.

“You’re a paladin,” Shiro murmurs, half to himself and half to the boy beside him. “A paladin of Voltron.”

The boy looks over to him and nods. His voice is a bit louder as he says, “Name’s Lance. You  _ are _ an Altean, right?”

“Yes.” His speech feels half slurred, pushing out vowel after consonant. “Shiro.”

“Shiro?” He, Lance, tilts his head. “That your name?”

“Yes.”

“Nice name,” Lance says with a lopsided grin. Shiro feels his hand squeeze his waist, comforting. “For a good looking guy.”

Shiro blinks down at him. He pinches his brows together and frowns. He can feel himself begin to blush. “I-” he starts as Keiv turns his head abruptly, a quick look thrown over his shoulder. He clicks open the door.

“Follow me.”

* * *

“Keith,” Lance hisses low as they turn the corner of yet another corridor. “Slow down. I can’t keep up and carry Shiro at the same time.”

“Stop complaining,” Keiv bites back but slows his steps to a halt outside a set of hanger doors.

“Sorry,” Shiro mumbles. It’s soft, so soft that he wonders if Lance can even hear him. His head feels stuffed full of cotton, his legs are like bricks.

“It’s alright,” Lance says and hefts his arm higher across his shoulders. His hand tightens its grip around his waist. He flexes his other arm, exposing nothing through the suit. “I’m strong enough for the both of us.” 

Shiro smiles weary, takes a breath as they step closer to Keiv. “Patience yields focus,” he sighs and watches Keiv look up at him, eyes brown and full of life. Shiro wants so badly to trust him.

Keiv slides open the door, hand braced along the keypad. “Bingo,” he whispers, taking a step into the room. “Let’s get out of here.”

Shiro watches him move, forward in through the hanger door to where Red sits. She’s an impressive sight, something Shiro missed in his years of captivity. He thinks of Black and wonders if she’s okay.

Keiv places his hand on the barrier around the lion. “Open up.”

She doesn’t budge but something does, Shiro can feel her again, resettling herself, waking up and assessing the boy before her. Lance walks them forward. “I thought,” he says as they slide in line. “You said could feel her.”

Shiro hums. Red, impulsive and hot. She’s always been unstable and resistant to change. “She’s temperamental.”

Keiv frowns, Shiro watches his hands ball into fists. He brings them up and hits the shield repeatedly. “Hey! Come on! I can feel you! We’re connected!”

The doors behind them make a noise as Keiv continues to shout. “You want to leave! So just-” Lance turns them to face the sound, sharp. “Let me help you!” Keiv pleads as Lance slides his free hand to his waist to grab for his bayard. It pops, reforming itself into a blaster. He levels it one-handed at the slot of light that pours through the door. “Come on!”

Shiro’s hand brushes the barrier. He can feel Red considering. She wants to wait for her paladin but she’s gone, everyone but him. “I’m so sorry,” he murmurs to her under his breath. “I couldn’t save them.”

The barrier snaps as the doors slip fully open. 

Shouts fill the room, Lance pulls the trigger at the first guard. His arm slides out from around Shiro’s waist to steady his weapon. “Take Shiro!” he shouts. “I’ll cover you!” His hands shake as he takes another shot.

Shiro stumbles towards the lion. Keiv catches his elbow and helps him into the ship.

Shiro doesn’t understand, doesn’t get why Keiv would throw everything away to help him. He thinks back to the last conversation they had in the small containment chamber. “You’re not supposed to be here,” he says and looks for the spark of recognition in his familiar yet unfamiliar eyes.

“Doesn’t matter,” Keiv says when they hit the floor of the cockpit. His gaze is like liquid fire, hot with determination, as he helps sit Shiro against Red’s walls. His voice is the same as it was in the cold metal of the prison room. “We won’t be here for much longer.”

Lance climbs in a few seconds later, breath hot and heavy. His arms shake as he inhales, rubs his hands across his face. “Let’s get out of here.”

Keiv slides in the pilot’s chair. Shiro can feel Red push, pull against him slight before giving. Her dash lights up, the display popping up red and warm. “Good kitty,” Keiv murmurs against the ping of the comm feed connection. He grabs the throttle and Red moves, claws her way outside of Sendak’s ship with a muted snarl. “Let’s roll.”

Shiro closes his eyes, head falling back against the wall of the cockpit. 

“Come on,” another voice sounds over the comm system. Another paladin? Shiro vaguely wonders how many they have, three? All five? He thinks about Black and misses the comfort of her cockpit. “Just break, you terrible machine!” A grunt followed by sharp whoop. “One point for Hunk!”

“Kitty Rose has left the stage!” a new voice says. Shiro doesn’t recognize this one either.

The first person hums. “I hope I stopped the cannon, I feel I barely made a dent in it.”

“Good job, team,” Lance murmurs. Shiro opens his eyes, watches him lean over the pilot’s chair with a wearied grin. Two faces are present on the display, small and towards the bottom. One green, one yellow. Lance points forward at something Shiro can’t entirely make out. “We need to pull down towards that planet, Keith. We’re headed into that castle. I need to get to Blue.”

Shiro jolts. A castle? 

He wonders if it’s the same one, the Castle of Lions. It’s been years, decades, centuries at least since he last saw it, since King Alfor scattered the lions to prevent them from falling into Zarkon’s hands, since he left in an attempt to protect it only to wind up captured and tortured.

Shiro braces one hand against the wall, the other on the floor, and makes to stand. His left knee buckles and he falls hard into the metal paneling.

He can see it, the castle, glittering through the red film display. It looks about as well as it ever could, half buried among the earth of the planet. He takes a breath and feels it line the inside of his rib cage. “The Castle of Lions.”

Lance turns to face him. “Are you okay?” he says.

_ No, _ Shiro thinks but doesn’t say. He’s overwhelmed, feeling things he hasn’t felt in years. 

He shakes his head. “I am-” he tries and then pauses, considers his words more carefully. “I was the Black paladin.”

“Wait,” Lance frowns. “You’re a paladin of Voltron?”

“I was, yes,” Shiro tries to stress. He doesn’t know if he’s still needed, if Black chose a new paladin while he was in captivity. “I may not be anymore. The other lions chose new pilots.” 

_ There’s no reason Black hasn’t either, _ he thinks but doesn’t say.

“Nope,” Lance says, crossing his arms. “Black hasn’t chosen anyone else. She’s been in the castle the whole time apparently. Allura-” 

Shiro hears his blood rush through his ears. “The princess… is alive?”

“Huh?” Lance’s eyebrows unfurrow as he blinks up at him. “Oh yeah, her and Coran. It’s, uh, been a long time but yeah, I, um, woke them up maybe about a few days ago?”  

Shiro gapes. He doesn’t know what to say. It’s honestly a relief, finding out at least two people he used to know survived. 

“Anyways, Allura says the black lion won’t activate until all the other lions are present, which they should be now. I think she was planning on piloting it until we could find another person suitable to do it but since you’re here, I’m pretty sure Black will listen to you just fine.”

“Hate to break up your talk,” Keiv pipes up from the pilot’s seat. Shiro blinks over at him, forgot he was there the minute Lance mentioned the castle. “But I’m landing this thing soon. I’m not staying long, seems like your friends need back up.”

“No,” Lance says. His voice is louder, turning back towards the pilot’s chair. “According to Allura, we need all the lions together to unlock the black lion. I’ll need you to drop us off and then meet the others at the hanger.”

“Alright.”

* * *

Shiro’s footing is steadier coming out of Red onto the mouth of the castle. Lance stands close by, hand braced on the small of his back just in case. They watch Red start to take off, brief, before making their way inside.

It’s surreal, Shiro thinks, being back here. It’s empty, the walls cold and dim. His feet guide him automatic into the control room. 

The Princess stands there, hair up, face steeled and determined. Her hands are outstretched, plunged into the controls in front of her. Coran mans another station. They’re shouting something at each other, at the other three paladins but Shiro can’t make out any words, his ears feel full of cotton.

They’re alive, just like Lance said. He feels like crying.

“Lance! Get to your-” Allura’s gaze snaps to them as their footsteps sound around the metal of the room. Shiro can see her eyes widen, her mouth stays open as she cuts herself off. “Shiro?”

Coran looks over, face twisted in a similar expression of shock. His hands fall slack against his side.

Shiro swallows a heavy breath. “Hello Princess, Coran.”

Lance pats him on his back. “Keith found him in a cryo-pod on Sendak’s ship.”

Allura looks torn between running over and hugging Shiro and keeping her station but her choice is interrupted by the alarms sounding. 

“Oh, quiznak!” Coran yells and turns back to his station. 

“We’ll talk later.” She frowns. “Sendak is entering the Arusian atmosphere.”

“Lance,” Shiro stumbles forward, running on pure adrenaline. “We need to get to the lions.” Lance nods, starts towards his hanger and then pauses. He looks back and opens his mouth to presumably ask if Shiro needs help. He waves Lance off. “I’ll be alright.”

“Alright,” Lance says, sounding dubious. He exits regardless.

“Shiro,” Allura says again when Lance leaves the room. Her eyes rest steeled in the barrier controls. “You aren’t fit to pilot the black lion in the state you are right now.”

“Princess,” Shiro says back, continues towards the entrance to Black’s hanger. “If you may excuse my rudeness, neither are you. You and Coran need to stay and protect the castle. We have a group of inexperienced pilots out there, they need a leader who knows what they’re doing.” He sighs, his head aches. “I’ll be able to do more in Black than I will here.”

Allura exhales, breath hot and huffed. “Don’t strain yourself.”

“I’ll try my best.”

* * *

Black feels like home. 

Her cockpit is warm and she purrs when he finally slides into the pilot’s seat. It’s comforting, truly comforting to be back after years and years of waking up to the ugly metal floor of countless Galra ships. The memories blur together hazy, wrong. There’s pieces missing, gaps between sharp feelings and Keiv. Shiro shudders, takes a breath and lets his lion wash over him.

_ You’re alright, _ Black says as he finally settles his hands on the throttle. Shiro wonders if she can feel the difference between them now.  _ It’s been so long. _

“Thank you,” Shiro says. “For waiting for me.”

_ We are deeply connected, I could feel you were still alive. I knew fate would bring us back together. _

Her display blinks on as she exits the castle. 

_ “-repair fast,”  _ a half-familiar voice says as the comms click up. One of the voices from Keiv’s ship, another paladin.

_ “The barrier gets weaker with every hit,” _ Coran chimes in. He sounds oddly cheerful.  _ “Once that shield goes down, the castle will be left defenseless.” _

_ “I can cover you with the castle defenses for a little while, but you have to figure out how to form Voltron or we’ll all be destroyed!” _ Allura yells. Shiro can practically hear her teeth grinding against each other. No doubt she’s frowning.

Shiro can see the other lions starting to surround the large battleship. Red and Blue, Keiv and Lance, Shiro can tell have at least flown before but their movements along with the two others are clunky at best. No unity in their actions, the comm lines are full of idle chatter; there’s no doubt in Shiro’s mind they won’t be able to form Voltron yet. “We’ll make do the best we can even without it, Princess.”

They have to.

_ “Shiro,” _ Lance speaks up over everyone. The comm lines clear to a soft buzz. _ “You’re the one with the most experience. What should we do?” _

Shiro inhales, exhales. “For better or for worse, we’re a team now. The only way to succeed is to give it all you’ve got. I know this looks bad, but we can do this. I can give direction but I need everyone to listen, is that okay?”

He hears a murmur of agreement as he takes a second to assess the situation. The battleship is massive, much bigger than the ones he saw years before, the last time they had all the lions together. It’s surrounded by a few smaller ships, individual fighters. 

Shiro watches as Yellow takes one on out the corner of his eye. A simple crunch of the jaw and it explodes. 

“Alright, let’s do this.” Shiro hopes that they can.

_ “Uh,” _ Lance pipes in.  _ “How?” _

“Yellow and Green should focus on the smaller ships first. Any lasting damage you did to the cannon looks to be repaired, avoid it while redirecting the blasts away from the castle. Red and Blue are with me, we need to find the warship’s weakest points and exploit those.”

_ “What of the giant machine the legends speak of?”  _ one of the other paladins says. Shiro wonders which one it is, frowns.

Shiro sighs. “We don’t have enough time right now to figure out how to form Voltron. It’s not as simple as pressing a button and hoping.” He drags a hand across his forehead and pauses, searching for the right words to say without sounding totally defeated. “We’ll make do with what we have now but you all have to listen to me and believe in yourselves. I promise you all that we’ll get out of this alive.”

Shiro hears his hearts beat in his ears. He thinks of empty promises, of his previous team washing away in a spray of thick blood. He hopes he can follow his own advice long enough to make it back into the castle.

He watches Yellow and Green veer off towards the thick of fighter ships, seemingly satisfied with his speech. They promise to join after they take out a majority. Shiro hooks right on the throttle and feels Black follow. Blue and Red flank the sides of him as they slide around the breadth of the battleship.

_ “So,” _ Lance says. His face pops up on the display, soft and washed with blue. _ “How are we going to do this?” _

_ “Attack from the inside, it’s the weakest point,” _ Keiv throws back. It’s a surprisingly sound idea.  _ “There should still be a hole from where we broke out earlier.” _

A brief flicker of doubt clouds over Shiro’s mind, a nagging voice in the back of his mind that tries to tell him that Keiv is leading them back into a trap, directly into Sendak’s hands, that Red only chose him in order to break out and logically Shiro knows, he knows she would never call to anyone she felt to be corrupt. 

_ “Shiro?” _ Keiv questions. His image appears, familiar, unfamiliar, next to Lance’s. He looks concerned. His eyes are red brown and sharp, knife cut thick with worry. Shiro can read him like a book. It’s reassuring.  _ “We can come up with another plan if you’re not comfortable with that one.” _

He takes a breath, in, out, and pushes his doubts to the side. “No, you’re right. The easiest way to take the ship down is through the inside.”

_ “Don’t push yourself. I told myself I would get you out of here and I meant it.” _

* * *

Yellow and Green join them on the inside. 

It’s refreshing, Shiro thinks, to tear through miles and miles worth of metal that caged him for years on end. Keiv stays close, hard wired rage visible in his face as he crushes whatever technology he can get his lion’s claws on. The video feed stays connected the entire time.

They keep in a loose formation, heavy hitters in the front, the others trailing behind, and manage to tear clean through the weight of the battleship’s bridge. 

Shiro doesn’t take his eyes off of it until both halves hit the ground with a sickening thud. It’s silent, eerily so. Shiro doesn’t think about the fate of anyone inside, he doesn’t want to. 

He wonders if Keiv does.

Black purrs, warm and comforting in the back of his mind. He can feel her pressing into the grooves of his head, soothing the ache of his head. Shiro needs the connection, craves it.

He stays inside Black long after they land back in the castle.

His room is the same as it ever was, untouched, preserved through the centuries of rest the castle apparently went through. Allura shows him to it, hand pressed comforting against the small of his back. Coran lingers behind and chatter on and on about something that Shiro’s not exactly paying complete attention to. 

They had tried, when he had finally emerged from Black’s hanger, to convince him to spend a brief time inside a med-pod. Shiro had felt sick just seeing one, seeing Keiv’s eyes from the other side of the room watching him with thinly veiled horror. Keiv had ran after that.

Allura and Coran had dropped it shortly afterward. Shiro hasn’t seen Keiv since.

He collapses on the bed when they leave, presses his palms into the soft blanket beneath him. It feels like nothing against his right arm, just pressure.

Shiro sighs, keyed up and exhausted. His eyelids, despite the thoughts swimming through his head, are heavy. He lets them close, lets himself be engulfed by the lions. It’s weak, the feeling, jumbled and frantic with the arrival of new paladins.

He can feel them considering, arguing. Blue, the loudest, fighting for the new pilots, Yellow right behind her. Red is resistant, Green reluctant. Black hums, a low noise against the heavy din of the lion’s connection. 

_ There’s nothing we can do anymore, _ Blue argues.  _ What’s done is done. _

_ We must protect them and the universe, _ Yellow agrees.

_ They don’t know each other, _ Green says.  _ They don’t know us. _

_ They have no experience, _ Red bites.  _ We’re fighting a war, not babysitting a bunch of inexperienced kidlings. _

_ We move forward, _ Black says, harsh and cutting. She refocuses her attention to Shiro.  _ Now sleep, my paladin. You are safe here. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first of all, i would like to thank everyone who's left kudos/bookmarks/comments. the positive feedback is really nice to get
> 
> second of all, so, i won't list every single thing out lmao but i did want to explain a little of the reasons for chapter delays if anyone's curious. it'll probably continue to be an ongoing thing unfortunately. besides hyperfocusing and throwing out a 12k keith-centric oneshot, i've hit a low spot in my life. i was a double major (and will continue to be one until the end of this semester unfortunately lmao) but i have dropped one of them due to mental health issues. it was an ongoing struggle i tried to keep up with bc i honestly used to like the medium but if writing for voltron has taught me Anything it's that listening to my instincts is usually a sound decision lmao. 
> 
> i've been a little rut with writing lately (with this and the other two lance pov fics i have started woo) and i've been trying to push through that a lot, hopefully it'll break soon. we've made it past the first episode lmao so i can finally move on the the transcript for ep 2 which will be a new change of pace and something i'm definitely looking forwards to starting.
> 
> Anyways! i have a new tumblr that im going to keep updates about catharsis on. i've got some[ older sketches](http://kievth.tumblr.com/post/152136721346/outfit-redesign-sketches-for-catharsis-the-alien) of the redesigned aliens and their outfits for reference. feel free to check the [ fic's tag ](http://kievth.tumblr.com/tagged/alienau)for progress news (it'll mostly be me complaining but y'know w/e)


	7. white

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh,” Keith says, brown eyes still a bit wide in disbelief. “Sorry, I’m not entirely used to this.”
> 
> Lance grits his teeth, expression a little sour. He pointedly avoids looking at Keith. “Evidently.”
> 
> “Keep being a fucking asshole and I really will walk out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i changed the story summary to a passage from this chapter that i think fits a lot better, at least in a broader sense. i mean it was also mostly bc the summary that i had previously, from the prologue, i was always a little shaky about. i had half toyed with making the summary just 'it starts with a dare,' which i thought was a Little Too General but that's beside the point.
> 
> anyways once again, thank you all for all the nice feedback i got last chapter. school's been trying to clean itself up lately, at least in the sense of events winding down. i unfortunately will have to deal with two review boards in like a week or so and im really trying not to think about them lmao
> 
> anyways, kicks down a door, welcome back to lance's shithouse

For the first time since stepping foot into the castle, Lance wakes to near silence. No loud banging at his door, no alarms blaring, no Allura yelling at him to find another lion, just the soft sound of his music, calm and serene. He isn’t sure whether or not to celebrate.

He hasn’t spent much time in the castle yet, his bag is still propped up against the bathroom sink-like apparatus, lotions strewn around the counter. He’s grateful for the split second decision to pack them, just as he’s grateful for the slippers Blue gently nudged him towards.

He supposes the gravity of the situation hasn’t fully sunk in yet, that he’s trapped in a space castle with another human and five aliens and virtually no way to get home. Blue assures him that Earth is safe, safer now that he’s out here, now that all the lions are together.

Lance tries not to think about it.

He scrubs off his face mask, water a comfortable temperature, and dries it. He takes a second to properly line up the bottles, both ones he brought and the ones he found underneath the sink.

He wonders about the other paladins. Pidge, searching for their family, Hunk, protecting his home. Shiro, Lance wonders if he’s okay, remembers watching him adamantly refuse when Coran and Allura tried to usher him into what they called a med-pod, remembers watching Keith flee the room. Lance has no doubts they were both thinking about the containment chamber back on the Galra ship, the one they rescued Shiro from. 

He wonders how they know each other, how Keith made it out of Earth and into space. He seemed to be a capable pilot, was he captured on a mission? Marooned in space after a wreckage gone wrong? 

Whatever the reason, Lance thinks and grabs for the toothbrush he packed, they should talk.

* * *

The kitchen is a small room off of the main dining area. Allura and Coran have been adamant about keeping a strict food schedule, or goo schedule, or whatever Coran likes to pretend counts as substance. He’s talked to Pidge and Hunk about it in between the panicked rush to find all the lions; it seems, no matter the difference in alien taste buds, the castle’s green goo is nearly unpalatable. 

The room is full, nearly everyone present, when Lance walks in. Allura sits at the head of the table, hair swirling out around her shoulders like a galaxy. She looks gorgeous, as she always does. To her right is Pidge. Their eyes are half shut, brows tilted down and angry. They look still half-asleep. Coran and Hunk are engaged in a heavy conversation on the other side of the table. He can’t make out much but it sounds vaguely like Hunk is interested in learning how to repair the castle. Shiro and Keith are nowhere to be seen.

A bowl of green mush stares tauntingly at him from the empty spot next to Pidge. Lance glares at it, taking a seat.

“Ah, Lance!” Coran says, his gaze flickering up from his conversation. “Good morning!”

“‘Morning,” Lance yawns, waves his hand a bit before grabbing his spoon. “Where are the other two?”

Allura clinks her nails against the side of her bowl. “Shiro is still asleep. The red paladin-”

“Keith.”

“Right, Keith. He is,” she pauses. “I believe he is in the training room. He hasn’t spoken to any of us since you all got back. Coran and I found him in there late last night when we tried to show him to a room.”

“He is… human? Right?” Hunk says. His yellow eyes are bright and hard to get used to. “The same as you?”

Lance nods. At least, he hopes so.

Allura hums. “You should talk to him, perhaps he’ll open up to you.” She scoops up a spoonful of goo demurely. Lance watches the excess run off the sides and splatter against the bowl. She doesn’t blink. “I’m willing to be lenient while Shiro is still recovering but the minute he feels better, I expect the lot of you to start rigorous training. We need the five of you to be able to form Voltron even asleep. We can’t do that if Keith refuses to socialize.”

“Yeah,” Lance sighs. “I need to talk to him anyways.”

Pidge blinks, shuffling their eyebrows further down. They take a moment to catch up on the conversation. “About how he knows Shiro?”

“Well, I mean that’s one thing.”

“I was wondering about that myself. You didn’t seem all that informed about the Empire when I first met you.”

“Yeah,” Lance hums out considering. “It’s a shock to even find out that humans aren’t the only race out there. I mean, yeah, logically, it’s stupid to think that we were completely alone in the universe but it’s all anyone on Earth knows. We’ve only been out to Kerberos, out at the edge of our solar system, and even that takes years of training and months in space.” He takes a shuttered breath and closes his eyes. “Blue made it there in about five seconds, I barely had time to think. It’s a little overwhelming.”

“You’ve come a long ways, Lance,” Coran starts in a soft voice. It’s soothing but the concern feels wrong, unwarranted. He’s done nothing to deserve it, especially from someone who found their planet destroyed after ten thousand years of sleep.

Lance waves a hand, forces a smile. “It’s fine, I’m fine.” He takes a big bite of food, shitty as ever. “I’ll try and find him today.”

* * *

Lance is starting to think, as he scours the halls of the castle, that Keith might be hiding in the air ducts. It seems to be the most likely scenario as Lance considers just how comfortable he was with the Galra warship’s ventilation system. 

He scowls and rounds another corner.

* * *

He finds Keith in a room down a long stretch of hallway Lance hadn’t even known was there. It’s small, about the size of Blue’s cockpit, and filled with a series of wooden staves and other various practice weapons. 

Keith stands, back to the door, considering the weight of the one in his palms. Jacket around his waist, hair tied back, his neck is exposed, skin cream white. He makes no move, as if he doesn’t know Lance has just walked in.

Lance clears his throat, watches Keith’s head swing around to meet his eye. “Hey.”

Keith frowns.

Lance continues, “Took me forever to find you. I know it’s a big castle but jeez, you’d think the new kid would be curious about everyone or, I don’t know, actually introduce himself.”

“Why are you here?”

“Okay.” Lance places a hand on his hip. “First of all, rude. Second of all, Allura wants me to talk to you since, y’know, you’re avoiding everyone and apparently that’s ‘detrimental if we want to form Voltron’ or whatever. Plus,” he adds. “Not gonna lie, I’ve had a few questions I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

Keith’s frown deepens, eyebrows pulled down. He lowers his gaze to the wooden staff in his hands, considers it again before throwing it in Lance’s direction, turning to pick another one up. 

Lance barely manages to catch it. “Wha-?”

“How well versed in hand-to-hand combat are you?”

“What the hell?”

“Your hands were shaking, on the ship, every time you pulled out your gun,” Keith says, calm, as he brushes past Lance’s shoulder and out a side door Lance hadn’t seen before; a reminder of how Keith brushed off his handshake the day before.

Lance jogs after him, palm slipping against the abnormally smooth wood. “Can you stop doing that!?”

The door opens out into a room with high ceilings, metal like the rest of the castle. A small window covers on observation deck on the other side. Probably the training room Allura mentioned.

Keith turns to face him, slams the end of the staff down on the floor. His other arm comes up to rest against his hip. “Stop doing what?”

“Brushing me off, redirecting the conversation. You did that back on the ship too.” Lance frowns. “Like, I get it, you don’t want to talk to me. You could just fucking tell me instead.”

“I just offered to help you spar while we talk.” Keith blinks, eyebrows notched together, confused. He continues, slower, “I would’ve just left if I didn’t want to.”

“You threw a stick at me and insulted my combats skills when I, uh, I don’t know? Totally covered your ass yesterday and helped save your friend? Excuse me for taking that a little rudely.”

“Oh,” Keith says, brown eyes still a bit wide in disbelief. “Sorry, I’m not entirely used to this.”

Lance grits his teeth, expression a little sour. He pointedly avoids looking at Keith. “Evidently.”

“Keep being a fucking asshole and I really will walk out.”

* * *

“So,” Lance says and yelps.

Keith brings down a hard swing somewhere above Lance’s head. He manages to catch it with his staff, barely, feet skidding on the metal of the training room floor. His jacket is gone, thrown across the deck, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. 

Keith’s face is pulled back into a snarl, nearly animalistic in quality. It’s terrifying, like he’s feral. He’s agile, feet quick and light as he kicks out to the side, swings his staff sideways and nearly into Lance’s torso. 

He wonders what happened to mold Keith into this, wonders what his life was like back on Earth.

“Watch your feet,” Keith murmurs to him for what feels like the hundredth time, before he kicks them out, points his staff at the meat of Lance’s neck.

Keith hovers over him, watches him pant, eyes knife sharp and dark. “I thought you had questions.”

“I did,” Lance heaves. He throws his arms out behind him, head tipped back as he sucks in ragged breaths. “But it’s kinda hard to concentrate when I’m trying my hardest not to get knocked back by a kid with murder in his eyes.”

“We’ll take a break then.” Keith hums. “Y’know,” he says and takes a seat next to Lance. “You landed exactly zero hits on me.”

“Okay, asshole.” Lance stretches his legs. He’s exhausted, working muscles he hasn’t touched since he used to swim in high school. His stomach aches to the point of nausea. “The worst I had to deal with back home was six siblings and a commander who gave me shit every time I messed up in the flight simulator.”

“That explains it.”

Lance looks over at Keith, furrows his eyebrows in confusion. “Explains what?”

“You’re not as awful as the other two in your lion.”

“Is that a compliment?”

Keith shrugs.

He looks relaxed, less on edge than he did when they first landed back on the ship after tearing apart the warship. His shoulders are less tense than they were only hours before, set and rigid in the small room Lance first found him in. There’s something about the atmosphere, something soft that pulls him to finally ask what he’s wanted to for the past day.

“You,” Lance starts after a long pause. He turns to face the wall across from them, pulls his knees up towards him, threads his arms around them. His mouth works around the question burning in the center of his gut, heart beating harsh. “You’re human, right?”

Beside him, Keith pauses. The sound of his breathing continues, soft and sure. He exhales on an affirmative hum. “Like you?”

“Yeah.”

Lance breathes. He’s not alone, not the only human stranded galaxies and galaxies away from his family. It’s comforting, as much as being trapped in a space castle can be. 

He’s not alone.

“How did you end up here?” Lance waves a hand. “Like, in space.”

“I,” Keith starts, palms on the floor. He leans forward, shoulders hunched. “I don’t remember exactly what happened. I just…” Lance can see his eyes narrow out of the corner of his. “Found myself on a Galra ship one day.”

“As a prisoner?”

Keith doesn’t respond.

“That’s how you met Shiro.”

Keith nods, just once, and doesn’t elaborate. Lance doesn’t ask him to. 

* * *

Shiro wakes up in time for dinner. He looks exhausted, eyes lined heavy in red, like he hadn’t slept well the night before, his gait still slow. His outfit is different, no longer the same set of rags he wore the day before, ill-fit and tattered. It looks more regal, more akin to the style of Coran and Allura’s outfits but washed out in tones of black and white. 

Lance watches him rub at his arm, the prosthetic one he’s pretty sure, absently as he and Keith make their way into the room, watches Shiro and Keith look at each other, gazes guarded. 

It’s odd, Lance thinks briefly, that they don’t exactly look elated to see each other. They’re friends, Keith had said so on the Galra ship and yet they don’t look relieved to see each other, more like they’re scared to confront one another, like it’s been a long long time since they last met. 

Perhaps the circumstances of their reunion are more complicated than he thinks. Lance tries to push it to the back of his mind. It’s not his problem.

“A round of applause, please,” he says in an attempt to cut the tension seeping into the room. He grabs Keith’s wrist in a loose hold before taking a large, dramatic bow. The room is full, everyone in the castle present. Hunk is smiling when he dips back up. “I have, as requested, retrieved the red recluse from the bowels of the training room.”

Keith pulls his arm out of his grip to fold his arms. He’s glaring, Lance sees it out of the corner of his eye, as he leans against the wall by the door. It would probably affect him more if he didn’t spend the entire afternoon subject to it. “I’ll leave.”

“Dude, _ buddy _ ,” Lance stresses. He whirls, hands on hips, to face Keith fully. “You didn’t even introduce yourself to everyone last night. I’m really starting to think you were raised by wolves. Have you never heard of proper table etiquette? ”

“You-”

“Thank you, Lance,” Allura interrupts from her seat at the end of the table. Her voice is stern and cutting. The room quiets around her as she turns her attention to Keith. “Lance tells me your name is Keith, yes?”

He nods.

“I am Allura, Princess of Altea. The man beside me,” she gestures to Coran. “is my advisor Coran. We would like to formally welcome you to the Castle of Lions.” Allura looks out around the table, taking in the new faces. Her expression is soft but steady. She looks resolved. 

“All of you,” she continues. “I’m afraid with the circumstances as they were, none of us had the time to properly get to know each other. I must thank you for protecting this world and the castle and ask for your help in the upcoming war.”

Beside her, Coran is somber, eyes distant and heavy. He braces a hand against the line of her bicep. 

“Shiro has informed us that Zarkon still lives. How, we’re not so sure. He is ruthless as many of you all know, he will stop at nothing to have the lions under his control. They are the only thing in the universe capable of defeating him.”

“And if,” Keith starts from his spot against the wall. “We refuse?”

“The lions have chosen the five of you as their paladins. However,” she cuts, meeting his gaze, knife sharp. “We cannot hold you here against your will. We ask for your full cooperation in ridding the universe of Zarkon once and for all. In return, we will do whatever is within our power to help you all as well.”

A breath. A hum. “Alright.”

From the table, Hunk nods. “I promised,” he says after swallowing a large mouthful of green goo. “I promised Shay I would show her what it is like to live free. The machine, Yellow as you all call her, said she wished to help. I believe her.”

Pidge, beside him, stretches their talons out to click against the middle of the metal table, expression sour and dark “They have my family. I want them back.”

Lance pauses. He vaguely registers Allura offering them an out. His mouth feels dry, his heart beats quick. It would be easy, he thinks, just to tell them he wants out, that he wants to go back home but something is stopping him. He can’t, he can’t go back, not now that he knows how fucked the universe would be without him. Just knowing Blue chose him, personally asked him to pilot her out of everyone at the Garrison.

She had asked him to leave Earth, asked for his help and told him that she wasn’t sure when she could bring him back home. He can’t just leave her to choose another pilot.

This isn’t about him anymore, it never was.

“I,” Lance frowns. He tells himself that this is something he has to do for the safety of the universe, for the safety of Earth and everyone on it. “Okay.”

“I’m here if you’ll have me,” Shiro says from his seat. His eyes rest steeled on the center of the table, gaze cold and cutting. “I won’t sit around and lose another crew.”

“Shiro...” Coran exhales. Lance doesn’t like the look on his face. It doesn’t fit, frown settled wrong against the bright orange of his mustache. 

Allura rises and braces her hands against the metal surface. “With that settled, you all need to learn how to form Voltron or we won’t get anywhere.”

“Indeed!” Coran chirps, finally grinning like he should. “That was only one ship! Wait until you have to fight a whole fleet of them! It’s not going to be easy being Defenders of the Universe.”

Shiro gives a weary smile. “I have to say, no matter how many times I’ve heard that title, it really never gets old.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in a measure of procrastination, a few weeks ago i ended up taking out a sharpie and some nice misc patterned paper and just. Basically planning out the main plot points in this (along with a few backstories that im not sure will be Truly focused on here? i.e. the previous paladins. i'll most likely touch upon it at some point i think...... probably.....)
> 
> chapters past this will most likely start to hit alternating povs. check out [my catharsis tag](kievth.tumblr.com/tagged/alienau) for progress updates, drawings, ect. i;m trying to keep up a bit of log since this is a chaptered fic
> 
> a good point about the next chapter (or maybe the one after who knows) remains that i already have a scene from it half built. i'll probably have to edit it a bit to filter in some of the current circumstances but hopefully we'll be kicking back into team bonding exercises and everybody knows i love found families even if i have to build this pyramid from the bottom up. 
> 
> anyways happy shklance week y'all this is all i got for ya, hopefully i'll have the next chapter out before i turn 21 in like 29 days. at least, that my goal. i have a bit more drive for writing lately so i'm trying to get out as much as i can before i burn out again lmao


	8. orange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Forming Voltron is... hard to explain. You have to feel for the bonds connecting you and your lion, calm yourself and all outer stimuli and just focus.”
> 
> Pidge lets out a noise of disagreement. “That,” they say. “Sounds like a load of bullshit.”
> 
> Shiro laughs. “We had more time to practice my first go at this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reviews were fun, in the measure of i-have-to-finish-all-this-stuff-for-a-major-i'm-dropping-and-oh-look-this-is-the-5th-time-this-week-i've-cried-on-the-floor-of-the-digital-lab. y'know, fun. 
> 
> anyways, i'm on winter break now which is always nice. i'll be back in school again somewhere around when season 2 comes out and that means i can watch it with my roommate and suffer together. 
> 
> i'd like to dedicate this chapter to the one fucking album i've been listening to on repeat for the past few weeks, illinois. welcome to team bonding 101
> 
> so as i said last chapter, i set myself a goal to finish this by my birthday and i've been super motivated lately. so here, on the day of my 21st birthday, i give y'all the gift of a chapter that was super fun to write. team bonding will always be the main thing i'm good at

Lance remains a stubborn sore stuck to his side through the past few days and honestly, Keith is more than a little thankful for that. Not sure what to say, he’s been avoiding the sharp cut of Shiro’s brown eyes. It’s easy while he’s still recovering, Keith mainly has to stay away from his room. 

Lance demands they get to know each other more, throws his arm over Keith’s shoulder in an overly familiar manner. He can’t remember the last time someone willingly touched him like this, just casually. It means nothing. Contact for contact.

It’s strange.

Keith wonders if this sort of behavior is normal for humans, or whatever Lance called himself, or if it’s just normal to him. Keith hopes for his sake that it’s the latter.

He’s done reconnaissance missions before, been awful at them. There’s too many little nuances to remember, too many delicate situations to ruin when your main go-to strategy is brute force. Why they thought he would be suitable for an interrogation in the first place is beyond him. How they didn’t expect him to pull a stunt similar to what he did honestly baffles him. 

Perhaps they really thought he was loyal. A funny thought, after the shit he pulled as a kit. But, Keith supposes, it was easy to fake being Galra-loyal when all his commanders had their heads stuck up Zarkon’s ass so far they could probably smell his bullshit.

Lance pulls him along to talk with the other two paladins, Hunk and Pidge. Keith is slowly starting to pull the names together. He likes them. 

Hunk is warm, sturdy. He trails often behind the orange haired Altean, Corinne or some other, watches carefully as they work together to fix up the castle. He tends to babble on, repeat certain phrases with differing forms of emphasis, as a way of dealing with excess nervous energy. He’s smart, incredibly so, and he learns fast.

Pidge is smart as well. Keith often finds them around the castle, device plugged into various terminals murmuring things he doesn’t understand like data points and energy readings. He likes how blunt they are, sharp jabs thrown around like knives. They get along. Keith likes the way they pick on Lance.

Keith’s not sure what to say, how to breach the topic of Shiro’s captivity and escape, especially when Shiro knows the truth. He avoids the Alteans, all three of them, because of it. 

Corinne, he sees more than the other two. It’s easy to redirect conversations with him, standing behind Lance and Hunk, throw out a comment or two and listen to the three of them hash things out. Keith lingers in the back during meals, meetings, close to door as he can manage to be without anyone commenting.

The Princess notices, there’s no way she hasn’t. She doesn’t say anything.

Keith hopes it stays that way.

* * *

It’s early. Maybe late, Keith isn’t quite sure.

He hadn’t slept much, light, on edge, after coming back from an after dinner training session. It’s quiet in the little room the Princess told him was his. He doesn’t know how long he’s been laying here. It’s not quite bright enough yet to constitute the castle’s definition of morning, just a sliver too dark to be the middle of the night.

His knife is sharp as he turns it over and over, absently wiping it with a small cloth just to give his hands something to do when he hears it.

A noise. 

It’s shrill, sudden. The castle’s alarm no doubt.

_ “Everybody up!” _ Allura’s voice rings over the loudspeaker.  _ “Zarkon’s attacking!” _

Keith shoots up, knocks into the wall parallel as he tries to grab his jacket. His knife is held, white-knuckled, in the palm of his hands.

_ “The Castle’s about to be destroyed!”  _ Allura shouts. Keith knows it’s not true, that this is a drill or sorts. The ship is too quiet, grounded. If there was really an attack, there would be something more. Something pulling the slide of his shoulders up and tense. 

He runs regardless, lets his feet carry him towards the central control room where the shortcuts to the lion hangers are.

_ “Go, go, go! We need Voltron now! Hurry! We can’t survive much longer!” _

He turns the corner and spots the three Alteans. Allura, in the middle dressed in a white jumpsuit. Her hair is pulled up, out of the way. Clean and practical. Shiro is next to her, in armour much like what the other three paladins wore back on the warship. It looks right on him, much better than the awful jumpsuit he wore in captivity.

Keith watches Corinne take the loudspeaker mic from Allura as Pidge walks in. “No, no, you’ve got to sell it a little bit more,” he says and then clears his throat. His thumb indents the little button. “Oh, no! Allura is dead!”

Shiro quirks an eyebrow, smiles faintly. Corinne continues, missing how Hunk, clad in soft pyjamas, drifts in. He rubs at his eyes, sleepy. “Aw, it’s horrible! Her head fell off! Wait!”

“Coran.”

He doesn’t listen. “What? Her severed head is trying to talk to me! What is it, Allura’s head? What are your final words?”

Allura closes her eyes, fingers coming up to rubs at the space in between her eyebrows. “Coran,” she says again, sharper.

“Oh, yes, Princess. I’m listening.”

“It’s over.”

“Oh, I know!” he laments, without sparing her much of a second glance. Despite himself, Keith finds the bare minimum of a smile lingering on his lips. “If only Voltron had been formed. Oh! Time!”

“I’m assuming,” Pidge says. They glare up at Allura, gaze steeled. “This was just a false alarm.”

“Yes,” she replies, crossing her arms without a beat. “And it’s a good thing it wasn’t because it took you,” she pauses, looks at Coran. “Coran?”

He pulls a device out of his back pocket, leaning in to stare at the little screen in front of him. His eyebrows are pulled down in concentration. “Seventy five degrees. Oh,” the device dings. “Sorry. No, this is a meat thermometre.”

Allura sighs, her hand returns to her forehead. “However long it was, it was too long. You must always be ready to do battle with Zarkon. Look at you!” She sweeps her arm out. “Only Shiro is in uniform! Keith, Pidge, Hunk, where are your bayards? And where is Lance?” 

Keith bristles, he sheathes his knife, opens his mouth to try and tell Allura that he doesn’t even know what a bayard _ is _ when the door behind him slides open. Lance strides in, unhurried and seemingly freshly washed. He yawns. “Good morning, everyone,” he says and then takes a minute to look around at the commotion. “What’s going on?”

“Coran and I,” Allura spits, “have been working tirelessly these past few periods in an attempt to get the Castle back in working order. We had to run a test of the alarms and decided to test you all.” She sends a pointed look in Lance’s direction and just to be petty she says, “Guess which one failed.”

Beside Keith, Hunk makes a disagreeing noise. “If I have the timeline correct, you got to rest for nearly ten thousand years. Only a few cycles ago, I was on my own planet, finding a large yellow machine that spoke to me for help. Now, I have flown said machine, destroyed a Galra warship, and attempted to navigate my way around a castle that is too bright. It is a lot to process, over the short time I have been here.”

“It’s the third quintant of the Spicolian movement,” Coran supplies as if it means anything.

“It is a lot to process,” Hunk repeats.

Allura sighs. “You must understand the stakes of our mission.” Her voice is soft as she brings up a small map of the universe, a good chunk of it is bathed in red. “Over the last ten thousand years, the Castle has picked up distress beacons from the following locations. We have to assume that Zarkon has conquered almost the entire known universe, something nearly all of you should be aware of already. It’s inevitable he will not rest until the rest of it is under his control.”

“Our mission,” she continues, “Is to free all those planets. Coran and I are getting the castle ready to leave Arus. During that time, you have to learn how to form Voltron so we can begin to fight Zarkon.”

Shiro hums. “The Princess is right. We all have goals of our own and to achieve them, we have to learn how to form Voltron. We need to start training as soon as we can. I want everyone in their lions, fully suited, as soon as possible.”

“Wait,” Pidge says, stepping forward. “I want to talk to the prisoners we rescued from the Galra ship.”

“Ah, that would be a negative, Number 5,” Coran says and then absently adds: “I have you all ranked by height. The prisoners have to remains in the cryo-replenishers under tomorrow.” Pidge narrows their eyes but says nothing.

Allura nods. “That’s right. Now, suit up and get to your lions. We will be starting drills within three intervals with or without you. Anyone who is late will be penalized.”

Keith watches Hunk, Lance, and Pidge clear out of the room. He lingers just long enough to catch Shiro’s gaze, hear him clear his throat. Keith turns on his heel. He’s eager to leave, use the allotted time to find the door to his lion’s hanger.

“Wait.”

He pauses. 

“Princess,” Shiro says behind him. Keith takes another step forward. “Have you shown him his armour yet?”

* * *

“This isn’t working,” Shiro says over the comm system. He’s not entirely surprised, they hadn’t been able to form Voltron a few weeks prior, in the heat of battle. Now, with things more jumbled, it had only gotten more confusing.

They don’t know each other, haven’t had the years upon years of experience learning each other that he had had with his previous team. They’re all preoccupied, in one way or another, with different priorities. Hunk, Yellow’s pilot, wants to liberate his home planet, a Balmera. Pidge, Green’s, is searching for their family. Lance misses his home, according to Allura. He spends his down time bothering Keiv. Shiro wonders if he knows that Keiv isn’t the same as him.

He’s not quite sure what Keiv wants, only remembers the determination visible in his now brown eyes on the floor of Red’s cockpit. He’s been avoiding Shiro, Allura and Coran as well.

They don’t know each other and the Princess has to know that’s the reason they aren’t able to form Voltron. They have to find a common thread, something more primal than just ‘Defeat Zarkon.’

_ “How is it supposed to work?” _ Pidge says. Shiro can’t see them but he can hear the frown in their voice.  _ “I don’t see a button that says ‘form Voltron.’ Are we just supposed to hope and pray because that doesn’t seem to be working.” _

_ “You  _ have _ done this before, Shiro? I do not mean to doubt you but it seems very impossible. We have been trying for hours, I am not sure we have what it takes to do this.”  _ Hunk adds, doubtful. Shiro’s not entirely sure how to respond to that

_ “No,” _ Lance murmurs.  _ “We have to have it. I mean, it probably isn’t easy, we’ve already found out but, we aren’t the first paladins to pilot these lions and we certainly won’t be the first to form Voltron. There’s,” _ he pauses, takes a deep breath,  _ “There’s a reason they chose us, I think. I trust Blue.” _

Shiro can feel Blue preen at the attention through the milky lines of connection present between the lions. He’s thankful for Lance’s input.

“Thank you, Lance,” he says and clears his throat before addressing everyone. “Forming Voltron is... hard to explain. You have to feel for the bonds connecting you and your lion, calm yourself and all outer stimuli and just focus.”

Pidge lets out a noise of disagreement.  _ “That,” _ they say.  _ “Sounds like a load of bullshit.” _

Shiro laughs. “We had more time to practice my first go at this.”

_ “Sorry to interrupt,” _ Allura cuts over the comm lines. Her face appears on the display, grinning.  _ “We need to run a diagnostic check on all of the Castle’s defenses. This should help to inspire you all! I believe in you! Let fear be your guide in forming Voltron!” _

_ “Okay, woah, woah!”  _ Lance yells as a cannon blast nearly clips Blue’s side. Shiro nearly laughs again and wonders, not for the first time, if Allura has ever heard of easing yourself into something slowly. He knows they don’t have much time to figure this out but throwing everyone head first into a lake full of disaster doesn’t exactly seem to be working well enough.

* * *

It doesn’t work, which isn’t surprising. 

They make their way back into the castle as soon as the particle barrier falls feeling frustrated and unsuccessful. Coran guides them into the training room and tries to talk them through drill after drill. It’s strangely nostalgic, Shiro thinks. He’s done these before hundreds of times but it’s not the same, harder now that no one knows how to move.

They don’t know each other, it rings heavily in his mind as Coran instructs them to sit in a circle in the middle of the training room floor. 

“Now,” he says, looking around the circle. It had been a small fight to get Keiv to participate when Coran first mentioned they were starting a mind melding exercise, quelled only when someone had asked him if he had something to hide. “The most important part of paladin training is being able to meld your minds and focus on one thing: Voltron. Everything else has to fade away. This technique will be essential every time you form Voltron. So, relax and open your mind. No walls, no secrets between paladins. Come on, everyone, clear everything.”

Shiro closes his eyes and concentrates, just feels for the threads weaving the five of them together. They’re weak but still present which is reassuring. Lance, open and wanting, thinks vaguely of family, a large group but warm and inviting. Pidge likewise envisions family, a smaller unit and close, so close. Shiro can feel their desire, both of them, to have their homes returned, make them whole once more.

Hunk dreams of freedom, of reaching the surface of his planet hand and hand with everyone, of sitting around a boiling pot and soaking up the warmth of good food and company.

Keiv thinks of a cold, cold room through milky film. He is resistant and shaky, giving way to blurry pictures and half-formed words. Shiro can see himself through the cold glass of the cryo-pod on the warship, can nearly feel the stomach-churning nausea and anger piping itself across the connection and into the middle of the floor. 

“Now,” Coran continues, not touching on the fact that he can clearly see Keiv struggling. “Focus on forming your lion. Bring your lions together and -and form Voltron. Keep your minds open, work together.”

There’s a bubbling in the room. It feel intimate, the process, channeling your raw self against the bonds holding everyone together, pouring your all into such a concentrated point. Familiar, Shiro feels it slowly start to slide itself together.

“Good, keep focusing! Only one to go!”

“Hunk,” Keiv says, plainly. “Stop rooting through my mind.”

“I thought we were open,” Hunk replies. “You are allowed to look into my head hole.”

“I’m not comfortable with this either,” Pidge grumbles from the other side of the circle. “Let’s just agree to stay out of each other’s head and focus on forming Voltron or whatever.”

“Almost there,” Coran announces over everyone. “Now form Voltron. Just like that, yes!”

It clicks. Something does, but it’s brief, flickering in and out of existence until the connection shatters. Shiro opens his eyes.

“I’m done with this!” Pidge is the first to stand, grabbing their headpiece and throwing it to the floor with a clatter. “I don’t like everyone grubbing around in my head!” 

Next to them, Keiv is frowning, eyebrows furrowed together. He holds his headpiece in his hands before setting it down forcefully. He crosses his arms. “I don’t like it either.”

“And somebody!” Pidge continues, turning to look at Hunk pointedly. “Won’t stop trying to prod around in my brain!”

“I was curious! The lines between you both were shaky, I meant only to find the reason why. I did not purposely intend to look!”

“That doesn’t mean that you didn’t do it! Which I know you did, because I felt it!”

Beside him, Lance tips sideways, crushing his cheek into the metal floor. He turns to rest on his back and groans loud, drawing it out until he runs out of breath. His arms raise, waving with each word. “Whatever! We get it blah blah blah, don’t look into your head! Can we stop fighting now?” He lowers his hands, pressing the meat of his palms into his eyes. “This isn’t helping us do anything.”

Shiro sighs and, not for the first time today, wonders if they’ll ever be able to form Voltron.

* * *

There’s a glint in Allura’s eyes as she reprimands them for not being able to fight the gladiator. 

Keiv had done well, all things considered, getting hit after hit, blocking it so Lance could get a couple of his own in. Unfortunately, the gladiator had rebalanced itself, landed a solid kick to Lance’s ribs and Shiro had froze, forcing Keiv to protect him. One push up of Keiv’s staff and a clip to his stomach had tossed him into Shiro and knocked the both of them over.

Allura catches him on the walk over to the dining hall. Her lips are pulled back into a frown. “That would normally not be a problem for you, what happened?” she asks him.

He doesn’t exactly.

Shiro forces a smile. “I just got tripped up, Princess. It’s a little hard to get back into the swing of things. I promise it won’t happen again.”

She hums, not placated in the slightly. “Are you alright, Shiro?”

“We just need to get to know one another better.” He sighs. “It was a much slower process before. We had years to get to know one another before we first formed Voltron.”

“We don’t have years now.”

“I know,” he says, and he does. There’s no doubt he feels the pressure more than anyone else on the team. “But we’ve made progress today.”

“Not enough.” Allura crosses her arms. “Zarkon knows, that we finally have all five lions back together. I fear an attack any day now. We need to be prepared for anything that comes.”

* * *

Coran and Allura cuffs their hands together during dinner.

It’s a bit aggravating. Shiro gets it, he really does. They have to be able to form Voltron, they have to protect the castle but forcing them to work together to eat seems a little extreme. The rest of the team seems to agree.

Pidge throws the first plate of food, aimed directly at Allura. It’s sickly satisfying, if Shiro’s being completely honest with himself, and it turns into an all out brawl.

The room is covered in sticky, green goo only minutes later. It’s disgusting, but there’s a rush he can feel pouring through the links on the handcuffs. Allura is grinning from the head of the table, food stuck all over her hair. She ushers them into their lions as quickly as they can get untethered.

They fly in formation, Black in the middle flanked by Green and Red. Yellow and Blue bring up the ends.

The connection is live, thrumming through the edges of their lions and pouring into everyone. It’s weak, much weaker than Shiro’s ever encountered before but still more than they’ve had all day. He can feel it everything stutter and start to slide, slow like syrup, into a semblance of order. 

It’s smoother than their mind-melding stint in the training room and when it finally clicks together, he can feel everything. A rush of curiosity, a bubble of incredulous shock, an ocean of pure unadulterated happiness. Shiro can feel Lance the most, wonder mixing with Shiro’s own pride in this new fledgling team.

It’s different than any other time he’s done this, Shiro thinks, more bittersweet, younger and more bumbling. They’re still just getting used to each other and this feeling of forced togetherness. He misses his previous team but he can’t allow himself to dwell on that now.

_ “Shiro!”  _ Lance says, face popping on the lower display. His grin is wide and catchy. Shiro can’t stop himself from echoing it.  _ “We did it!” _

“Yeah, we did,” he says. “Good work team.”

* * *

“Keiv.”

Keiv stops, hand curled around the door jamb of his new room. They’re alone, for the first time since they made it back to the Castle of Lions.

“It’s Keith now,” he says simply. It’s as close to a confirmation that he’s the same Galra soldier he met back on Sendak’s ship, the one with the haunted eyes and quiet offers of water, as Shiro thinks he’ll get.

“Keith then,” Shiro acquiesces. “Why?”

Shiro’s not entirely sure what he’s asking, so much loaded into one little word. 

Keith glances at Shiro over his shoulder and walks into his room. He leaves the door open behind him in a wordless invitation to come in. Shiro takes it, closes the door behind him.

Keith is finally facing him, leaning against his desk with arms crossed. He refuses to meet Shiro’s eyes but he’s listening.

“Why?” Shiro asks again, feeling his voice falter. 

Keith sucks in a breath. “Why what?”

“Why,” Shiro frowns. His head is buzzing as he tries to separate what he’s thinking into a coherent sentence. “Why did you save me?”

Keith lifts his face slightly, catching Shiro’s eyes.

“I had to.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope everyone had a much better holiday season than i did lmao. my christmas was a little rough but new years was definitely better (: 
> 
> as an impulsive person who writes to make myself feel better, i started another voltron wip on christmas, which will be, drumroll please, the origin story of how catharsis shiro met black. i'm about 400 or so words deep into that one, exciting i know. which means it'll be a very long awaited gift of sorts to everyone reading, here's a little teaser image that also doubles as a sneak peak into what all my documents look like lmao  
> 
> 
> also! please look at this [lovely drawing of balmeran hunk](http://www.kievth.tumblr.com/post/154354456671/v-doooooodles-balmeranhunk-for-kievth-as) that was gifted to me. i know i thanked you on tumblr but it's really nice to get feedback (one again thanks to everyone for leaving such nice comments. i'm shittly nervous about responding unless it's worded as a direct question rip but i love talking about this au, it keeps me young and spry)


	9. gray

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You had to,” Shiro repeats, a little incredulous. He doesn’t know Keith that well, only knows him by his actions, quick and impulsive. It’s not entirely surprising, given his previous track record, but Shiro is still a little taken aback by the intensity of his statement.
> 
> “Yeah.” Keith looks down, scuffs the heel of his boot against the castle floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> classes have started again, i have mostly academics this semester which kind of sucks. which means i'm spending a bit more time writing essays and trying not to die, along with trying to get my own sound work together into mostly formed pieces. things are coming along super slowly on the creative front lately so i decided to post this chunk of the chapter bc it's been like over 2 months since the last update and i'm disgustingly stuck on where to go next. i know logically but it's not. exactly coming out,,, 
> 
> anyways s2 was fun and i binged it the day it came out (and rewatched it with my roommate) and probably won't have Any sort of bearing here save for a couple plot points slow carved out of canon. i can't believe my boy is a lovely alien either, i love him........

“You had to,” Shiro repeats, a little incredulous. He doesn’t know Keith that well, only knows him by his actions, quick and impulsive. It’s not entirely surprising, given his previous track record, but Shiro is still a little taken aback by the intensity of his statement.

“Yeah.” Keith looks down, scuffs the heel of his boot against the castle floor. “You’re important; I couldn’t watch anymore.”

There’s a beat as Shiro waits for something more. He watches Keith’s brow furrow 

“Shifters are rare in Galra ranks. They take us off our home and use us for things like infiltration missions and interrogations. Apparently they thought the kit with no family and discipline issues was a great asset to them.” Keith shrugs. “Maybe they were willing to overlook those because I showed combat prowess or something like that.”

Keith pauses a beat, “I’m really good at running and stabbing.”

Shiro breathes out a small laugh. He’s rewarded with a brief quirk of Keith’s lips before he continues. “You didn’t seem to be doing much of that back on Sendak’s ship. Though I was out for much of my time there, I suppose.”

“Things got messy during a minor assassination a few months before I was put on Sendak’s ship. I was told that it was an important mission, a promotion of sorts or some bullshit.” He shrugs. “Though I’m fairly positive they reassigned me in order to try and keep a better eye on me. I think they were getting desperate on your end too.”

Shiro hums, “So you were assigned to watch me?”

“They wanted me to study your appearance and the way you held yourself to try and convince you I was another Altean. Instead, I watched tape after tape of torture until I physically couldn’t anymore. They refused you food and water; Bastards kept trying to convince me that the pod kept you alive. It was sickening, they kept treating you like you were something they pulled off the bottom of your boots.”

Keith frowns, continues. The look in his eyes is dark. “I memorized the security detail shifts so I could switch the footage out. You looked empty, defeated. I wanted to show you some compassion for once.”

“That’s when you started visiting me.” It’s not a question. 

“Yeah,” Keith says with a sharp nod, his tone is matter of fact.

“I,” Shiro says. His thoughts are jumbled, running a mile a minute. He keeps thinking of the yellow glaze of Keith’s eyes, sick and resilient, hooked on his in the cryo-chamber. “I recognized your eyes, the first time you visited. You stood in the back, always the closest to the door.”

“I hated watching. I wanted to leave and I wasn’t going to do it without you.” His grip shifts, fingers opening and closing around the material of his uniform. “I knew that Red was important too. I watched Sendak stroke his own ego after getting her from the vents. I hated him and I could feel how much she did too.”

“You could feel her?” Lance had mentioned it back on the ship but Shiro hadn’t fully trusted him, half convinced himself Keith had already knew where she was kept until he saw Red herself. She had considered him, had been doing it for a while, something she had barely given her first paladin. Shiro remembers her, how she had fought for Red to accept her. He remembers sitting with her for hours outside Red’s barrier on a mere feeling, watching Red’s tail flicking back and forth like an aggressive metronome.

Keith nods. “She didn’t speak but I could feel how much she wanted out, felt like fire burning under my skin. I was half convinced that there’d be smoke when I exhaled.”

Shiro watches his arms uncurl, hands tangling in the material of his pants. Keith takes a small breath, “I remember seeing Red, through the screens in the security room, and I knew I couldn’t leave her there either. It was only a coincidence that Lance and the others managed to show up on the same day I decided to act.”

“And you changed your plans when you found them.”

“Combined them,” Keith shrugs. “We had the same goal, free the prisoners and get the lion out of Galra hands. I followed them and helped. They wouldn’t have found you otherwise.”

The room lulls silent around them. Keith still won’t look at Shiro, eyes fixed on the wall behind him.

“Thank you,” Shiro says finally.

Keith smiles, small and fond. “There’s no need to thank me. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

Shiro hums. “So, why,” he starts and tries to remember what Lance called himself. “Human, right?”

Keith shrugs. “Lance was the first one I saw, I panicked.”

“And you plan to stay like this?”

“For now.” He nods.

“Why-”

“No one on this ship wants to work with a Galra. I’m doing everyone a favour like this,” Keith interrupts. His tone is cutting like he doesn’t appreciate all the questions. Shiro doesn’t blame him, he knows what it’s like to be interrogated. 

Shiro shakes his head in an attempt to placate Keith. “No,” he says. “That’s not what I was going to ask.”

Keith frowns. He re-folds his arms, gaze sliding down to rest on the floor again.

“You don’t have to tell anyone you’re a Galra,” Shiro starts again. “Why not say you’re a shapeshifter? Why do you have to convince everyone you’re human instead?”

Keith pauses, brows furrowed. He takes a few moments to settle on a murmured, “It’s complicated.”

“Complicated?”

“I’d rather it not be used as a bargaining chip,” Keith says and gives another sharp shrug. “I’m not the only in-rank troop against Zarkon’s advancement but-” He pauses, frown deepening like he’s considering what he can safely say. “I don’t know much more than that. It’s less messy this way.”

“So, you’d rather lie to the entire team.”

Keith doesn’t respond. Shiro continues, “I won’t say they deserve to know and I-” He grimaces. “I think you know that already. You know Galra destroyed Altea, Keith. They’ve enslaved countless planets, taken thousands of prisoners. You probably know that better than anyone.”

“...I know.”

“I have to tell Allura and Coran, at least.”

“I know,” Keith repeats with a frown. “This, I just-” He scuffs his shoe against the floor again, more aggressive, more agitated. “I just have to do this for now.”

“Just,” Shiro sighs. “Be careful about it. Don’t let this get in the way of us in forming Voltron.”

Keith looks up, eyes wide in surprise. He doesn’t make eye contact but he’s close. His voice is soft when he asks, “You trust me?”

Shiro isn’t sure how to respond. He doesn’t know if he trusts Keith, at least not fully, not yet. He’s unsure if he ever can. Shiro trusts his eyes, the hot set brown anchored to the wall above him, his words, most of them; Keith’s story adds up but he’s hesitant to trust someone he first met through the sharp film of the cryo-pod. “I trust Red,” he says because he does. He trusts her judgement more than he trusts his own. He trusts the pull she wound around Keith’s legs to bring him to her.

Keith’s eyes slide sharp to his, finally. His voice is as firm and cutting as his gaze. Shiro sincerely hopes Keith knows what he’s doing.

“If I ever let you or Red down, kill me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the adjustment back to school has been extremely rough, it's helpful not having to go back to a major i hated and i love the stuff i'm learning now but.. i definitely had more motivation when i was just making the switch back to college. living in another state, even if it's only 2 hours away from home is taxing and not having a reliable way of visiting has been slowly taking its toll on me. days have been weirdly in and out of writing ruts, art school is fun, y'know, when you're running around installing, deinstalling and trying to accommodate others to the best of your abilities. i'm learning a lot about the tech im working with but it's at the cost of my mental health and my own free time unfortunately
> 
> i still think about this story constantly even if it's a bit hard for me to motivate myself to write it, i love aliens so fucking much y'all i ended up designing out the [rest of the previous paladins.](http://kievth.tumblr.com/post/157012098226/og-alienau-paladin-designs) they probably won't appear much in this story but i'm so incredibly attached to their designs lmao. i'd die for myka tbh
> 
> i've just recently picked this up a little more but it's still a little slowly than i'd personally like.. Anyways, im in the middle of a much more lighthearted shance oneshot as well. who knows when that'll be out But! it's already longer than this chapter so who fucking knows,,,,,


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